Irrawaddy dolphin’s body tangled in illegal nets
Thu, 12 May 2016
Kong Meta and Igor Kossov

A vulnerable Irrawaddy dolphin was found dead in Kratie’s Sambor district on Tuesday after being caught in fishermen’s illegal gill nets, authorities and environmental watchdogs said.

‘‘I think this dolphin may have been dead for three or four days – its body was swollen and rotten, and its tail was tangled in nets,’’ said Seang Sokhim, a guard for the Koh Pdav natural dolphin pool.

Emma Fry, a communication assistant with the World Wildlife Fund, said the female dolphin was 183 centimetres long and weighed 80 kilograms.

This is the first time that locals saw a dolphin succumb to illegal fishing equipment, according to Sokhim...

phuketrichard wrote:
i went with my daughter back in 2011 to see them but she refused to take a boat with an outboard motor cause even she knew that the noise was disturbing to them
Perhaps if they don't die out, the locals will learn to only use kayaks in the future

Cambodia’s freshwater Mekong dolphin population has increased by four, adding a quartet of calves in the first five months of 2016 while also seeing a drop in the mortality rate compared with last year.

This was encouraging news for environmentalists in a region where increased dam construction has raised concerns over the dwindling numbers of dolphins.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Landscape Manager Horm Chandet praised the births as good news for Cambodia’s dolphin population, revealing the newly-born pups had been found in Stung Treng and Kratie before adding that three adult dolphins were found dead in the same period – one of which had been trapped in a net.

According to a WWF Cambodia report, there were more than 200 dolphins in the country in 1997. But by 2010 that number had fallen to 85 and now, only 80 dolphins are confirmed to remain...

John Bingham wrote:The Mekong is at it's deepest at Sambor, just upstream from Kratie. This year has seen the lowest levels in the river in decades. I went to see them in August 2005, the river was in full flood and we hooked the boat up to a branch of a tree that is probably 15 meters high in the dry season. They are hard to spot because they mostly only surface for a second or less. I do hope they can survive, they are quite well protected and the river is relatively clean, nets are probably the biggest threat to them now that most explosive and electricity fishing is less common.