BANGKOK , Feb 13 (IPS) - You can see them entertaining crowds at dolphin shows in theme parks across Asia or, even better, these friendly mammals can be glimpsed cavorting in their home waters, the Mekong River. But the recent deaths of 11 Irrawady dolphins, along a stretch of the Mekong in central Cambodia, has environmentalists worried that the world may soon see the last of this rare, delightfully playful species of aquatic mammal.
''They could be extinct in 10-15 years,'' Rob Shore, freshwater programme officer at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a leading global conservation organisation, told IPS. ''The ones increasingly trapped are baby dolphins. The current rate of deaths makes the status of the dolphin not sustainable.'' Environmentalists monitoring these mammals in South-east Asia's mightiest waterway say that the recent deaths -- nine possibly from pollution and two after getting trapped in fishing gillnets -- reduces by 10 percent their total numbers. Surveys reveal that there may only be 80 -100 Irrawady dolphins left in the Mekong River.
There were eight baby dolphins among those that died within a three-month period from December through February-- which is close to the annual average of calves that die in the Mekong. Since surveys of the Irrawady dolphins began in 2001, every year has seen 10 -15 deaths of calves.
''For the past three years, the peak period of dolphin mortality has been during the December to February period,'' says Alvin Lopez, wetlands ecologist for the Mekong Wetlands Biodiversity Programme, an initiative backed by the U.N. and other agencies. ''This is the dry season, the Mekong River is low and there is always a problem between communities, livelihoods of fishing people and the need to protect the dolphins.''
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