New Delhi, Oct 24: From this year, India would embark on a scientific enumeration of dolphins – to be carried out every three years like the tiger census – across Indus, Ganga, and Brahmaputra basins together to ascertain the exact number for the national aquatic animal.
The pan-India enumeration, part of the wider “Project Dolphin”, will be starting with workshops in November with field work aimed to be completed by March next year and the report expected by June-July 2022. This will start with river dolphins.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on August 15, 2020 initiated the Project, which envisaged bringing both the river dolphins and marine dolphins under its conservation programme.
Just as a tiger is considered an indicator of a good forest, river dolphins are indicator of a healthy river and act as an umbrella species of the river ecosystem. There are currently two species of the river dolphins inhabiting India, Ganges River Dolphin (Platanista gangetica) and the Indus River Dolphin (Platanista minor).
Ganges River Dolphin is listed in Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, and was declared as the national aquatic animal of India and the state aquatic animal of Assam in 2009. They are also accorded the highest protection priority for conservation, by being listed in Appendix I of CITES and Appendix II of CMS COP.
Government records show that the recent most estimation of the Ganges River Dolphins in the Ganga river basin, along with its tributaries, stands at 2,644 and in Brahmaputra, along with its tributaries, stands at 987 (survey in 2017-2018).
The Indus River Dolphin, meanwhile, has a population of 6-8 dolphins in India, distributed only in a small pocket of the Beas River in Punjab, with majority of the population, of 1,816 individuals, residing in Pakistan. (IANS)
