E-Paper
A prize rescue act in the Ganges
A river dolphin was rescued on Friday from the shallow parts of the Ganges near Narora in Bulandshahar district (Uttar Pradesh) and released in the deep waters of the stream 1 km away.
A river dolphin was rescued on Friday from the shallow parts of the Ganges near Narora in Bulandshahar district (Uttar Pradesh) and released in the deep waters of the stream 1 km away.
River dolphins have been declared highly endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a Switzerland-based organisation.
The dolphin, a two-year-old male, was transported to the deep waters by boat. Narora is 150 km south-west of Delhi.
Wildlife experts and fishermen who did the rescue act are looking for another missing dolphin in the same shallow part of the river.
Experts keep count of the dolphins that exist at the site, and in that way two dolphins were found missing. Dolphins can breathe better where the river is deep.
“Our volunteers are looking for another missing dolphin for translocation in the protected (deep) waters,” said Sandeep Behera, 45, senior co-ordinator of WWF India’s fresh water and wetland programme.
WWF is the erstwhile World Wide Fund for Nature.
A stretch of the Ganges between a part of district Ghaziabad (adjoining Delhi) and Narora has been declared the only “Ramsar site” of Uttar Pradesh for protecting river dolphins. This is where the dolphins went missing
India is a signatory to the global environment treaty adopted in 1971 at Ramsar, 195 km north of Tehran. The treaty selected sites in many parts of the world for environment protection.
