Nepal, home to the tallest mountains in the world, is losing a resource thousands of metres below — rare dolphins that swim in the kingdom’s rivers.
Nepal’s dolphins, who are between 1,5 and 4,5 metres long and weigh between 150 and 200 kilograms, are on the verge of extinction as a fast-growing population encroaches on their habitat.
The endangered mammals are found in only four of Nepal’s rivers, all in the Kailali district some 480 kilometres west of the capital Kathmandu.
Official studies put the number of dolphins at only 100, down from 250 just a few years ago.
Vijaya Raj Shrestha, secretary of Nepal’s Dolphin Protection Centre, said the dolphins faced an uphill swim against human settlement and official indifference.
”Man’s cruelty against nature has added to the problem of protecting these animals,” he said.
”The government’s apathy towards the problem of preserving them also can be ascribed as the cause of the possible extinction of the animal in the near future.”
The dolphins do not restore their ranks quickly. Female dolphins take two years to hatch each of their young, Shrestha said.
River dolphins, like those in the sea, are highly intelligent.
References to them in India’s Ganges River can be found in artifacts dating back to 246 BC, the time of king Asoka.
The king converted to Buddhism after witnessing a brutal war and then banned the killing of several species of animals, including the river dolphin.
But today Nepal’s dolphins are losing breeding space at an alarming rate as the country builds more roads and bridges along their habitat. Development is eroding river banks, sinking the water in which the animals live and find their main source of food, fish.
Careless local people also dump waste into the rivers, including the carcasses of dead animals, polluting the habitat, experts said. And the forests that surround the western rivers are under attack as residents chop down the wood for their own use.
”Those fishing in these rivers the dolphins inhabit also use venomous baits and powerful explosives,” said environmentalist R. K. Joshi.
Activists can count at least one success. Local residents’ custom of killing the animals for ”traditional medicine” has been curtailed, Joshi said.
But environmentalists say there is still much more work to be done if the dolphins are to survive.
”In these past four years, the Centre for Dolphin Protection has drawn the attention of the concerned authorities to check the decline in the dolphins’ number,” Shrestha said.
”However, nothing has been done so far,” he said.
Bhoj Raj Shrestha, president of the Centre for Dolphin Protection, said authorities needed to wake up if they hoped to save the rare wildlife.
”They should listen to our requests and do what is needed to protect the dolphins from disappearing forever,” he said. – Sapa-AFP