#Repost @everydayextinction (@get_repost) ・・・ Image of a Gangetic river dolphin (Platanista gangetica gangetica) by @aratikumarrao for @everydayextinction The most ancient of all cetaceans, the blind, side-swimming, endangered Gangetic river dolphin is also India’s national aquatic animal. With only about 2000 or so individuals left in the wild, this dolphin is finding its survival threatened in many ways. This is one way that dolphins die – especially young ones. Either they go to feed on fish caught in nets or, worse, they get trapped in nets strung across the width of a river. It’s their teeth: A fine white neat parabolic curve of sharp clean teeth that the net weaves itself in and out of, and snaps the snout shut. Adult dolphins are strong enough to cut through the net, juveniles like this one can do nothing. Unable to come up to breathe (dolphins are mammals and break the surface in graceful arcs to take in lungsful of air) they thrash wildly in the water, often entangling themselves further. Eventually, they suffocate and perish. A more pervasive threat to dolphins are dams and barrages which fragment the cetacean’s habitat and impound water, desperately diminishing flows in the lower stretches of the river Ganga. Dolphins love deep waters. Ongoing research has predicted that Gangetic dolphins will become extinct from many rivers without adequate flow. There is yet another sinister threat to these ancient creatures. India is planning to beef up its waterways. The National Waterway 1 & 2 — along the Ganga and the Brahmaputra rivers — overlap with 90% of the dolphin’s habitat range. Dredging (both rivers are among the siltiest in the world) that will be mandatory in order to keep the waterways pliable has been shown to affect the dolphins’ surfacing frequency. In an already fragmented, polluted and degraded habitat, increased stressful anthropogenic activities across 90% of its range does not bode well for the endangered cetacean. Even if the dolphins wanted to move, where would they go? Dams, barrages, dredgers, and barges would be everywhere. #everydayextinction #biodiversity #extinction #rivers #freshwaterspecies #freshwaterextinction
