From Our Correspondent
GUWAHATI: A ‘Dolphin yatra’ has set the sail along the course of Brahmaputra River from Guwahati to Sadiya under the banner of Dolphin Conservation Network (DCN) of Aaranyak.
The 12-member team of DCN, Aaranyak headed by Dr Abdul Wakid aims to conduct a detail survey of river dolphin population on Brahmaputra River and its tributaries in three phases that will culminate by end of May this year.
In the first of the efforts, the team will meet fishermen and river bank dwellers along the course of Brahmaputra while travelling upstream from Guwahati to Sadiya in eastern Assam to raise the awareness level among them about the need for conservation of the fragile population of river dolphins that is staring at extinction unless preserved well.
In the second phase of ‘yatra’ the tea will travel downstream the course of Brahmaputra from Sadiya to Dhubri in western Assam to carry out a detail survey of river dolphins.
While coming back from Dhubri to Guwahati, the team will again talk to fishermen and riverside villagers to raise the awareness level on river dolphin conservation.
In the third phase of ‘yatra’ the tea will carry out dolphin survey along Kulsi River in South Kamrup besides holding awareness campaign. Kulsi River is one of the well-known hubs of river dolphins in the state.
Ganges River Dolphin (Platanista gangetica gangetica) is an endangered species of River Dolphins, which has less than 2000 individuals in the world.
The Schedule-I Species is recognised as National Aquatic Animal of India and State Aquatic Animal of Assam.
The Brahmaputra river system within North East India has about 300 individuals of the species.
Due to less anthropogenic pressures and no water development projects in the mainstream of the River, the Brahmaputra river system has been recognized as one of the last refuges of the species.
There were two recent range wide population assessment surveys of the Gangetic River dolphin in the entire Brahmaputra River system, one in 2005 (Wakid 2005; 2009) and another in 2008 (Wakid & Braulik, 2009).
Both of these surveys confirmed the existence of about 300 Ganges River dolphins in the Brahmaputra River system.