A social media picture from Cambodias Fisheries Conservation Department shows the carcass of the Irrawaddy dolphin Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022.
Up the river and throughout the border in southern Laos, locals of the village nearby to the Mekong River freshwater dolphin habitat validated news of the death had reached the region and described conditions in the last few years that caused the mammals decline.
” The one that simply passed away was the last freshwater dolphin in this area,” stated a local of Hang Sadam village. “There will be no more dolphins in Laos since they have run out of food and the community has been destroyed.”
In last several years, 3 freshwater dolphins were been discovered in the Mekong River in southern Laos, but 2 passed away in 2015 and Tuesday death completed them off, according to the WWF.
” When they didnt have food, they d wander into other area where people fish or perhaps utilize explosive to catch fish. Thats why theyve all died,” added the Hang Sadam villager.
A fisherman in Hang Sadam village told RFAs Lao Service the last half decade has brought significant change, especially from dams on the Mekong.
” The Mekong River dams, including Don Sahong Dam in the area, should have had a role in the death of the dolphin. When the dams hold water, the Mekong River will be dry, or in some cases, the dolphins get captured in individualss internet and die.”
Don Sahong Dam is among 2 operational Mekong mainstream dams in Laos, which has 3 others in the planning or early building and construction phases as the government aims to produce revenue by selling the electrical energy from its hydropower jobs to its next-door neighbors. China operates 11 mega-dams on the river, with at least 2 more prepared.
Translated by Max Avary for RFAs Lao Service and Sok-Ry Som of the Khmer Service. Composed by Paul Eckert.
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The last recognized endangered freshwater Irrawaddy dolphin on a stretch the Mekong River near Cambodias border with Laos died this week, after it was reported snagged in a fishing net, wildlife officials and villagers in the Southeast Asian countries said.
” We are deeply saddened by the loss of the last dolphin … near the border of Laos,” Cambodias Fisheries Conservation Department said on its Facebook page.
Despite global efforts to secure it, the Irrawaddy dolphin sub-population in northeastern Cambodia “still dealt with major pressure from human activities, the modification of the Mekong water flow, and environment change, causing the overall population to slowly decline, and the last private passed away on February 15, 2022,” it said.
Listed as critically threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, populations of the aquatic mammal, also known as the Mekong River dolphin, endure downriver in Cambodia, in its namesake Irrawaddy River in Myanmar and in Indonesia.
According to the AP news company, the first census of Irrawaddy dolphins in Cambodia in 1997 put their total population at about 200, a number that fell to 89 in 2020.
” The remaining population of critically threatened river dolphins in the Cambodia section of the Mekong is now stable, whilst still dealing with serious difficulties,” AP quoted a statement from Lan Mercado, Asia-Pacific director of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as saying. “This most current river dolphin death highlights how susceptible these and other types stay.”
The dolphin– described by the WWF as 25-year-old male, 2.6 meters (8.5 feet) long and weighing 110 kgs (242 pounds)– was reported in regional Cambodia media to have actually been seen last week having a hard time in a net.
