First Organised census for Indian Dolphins to be carried out in India

• For the conservation of Indus dolphins - one of the world’s rarest mammals - the Punjab government along with WWF-India are conducting the first organised census on their population.
• Found only in India and Pakistan, the Indus dolphins are confined to only a 185 km stretch between Talwara and Harike Barrage in India’s Beas river in Punjab.
• the most flourishing population of the Indus dolphin, platanista gangetica minor, is found across Pakistan where their numbers are estimated to be around 1,800 over a stretch of 1,500 km of the Indus river.
• According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), construction of critical barrage is associated with the large-scale decline in the area of occupancy, “which have not ceased”. IUCN suspects the population size of the Indus river dolphins has reduced by more than 50% since 1944.

Times of India May 3 2018