Rare dolphins appear in Sundarbans
Thursday, 2 April 2009
FE Report
A previously unknown population of Irrawaddy dolphins has been discovered in Bangladesh, giving the scientists "great hope" for the survival of the rare species, conservationists said Wednesday, according to an internet report.
A research team estimated that 6,000 Irrawaddy dolphins thrive in the country's Sundarbans mangrove forests and nearby waters of the Bay of Bengal.
The group is the largest ever found, as, previously, scattered groups of only about a hundred Irrawaddy dolphins each had been found throughout the dolphin's Southeast Asian habitat, which stretches from the mouths of rivers feeding the Bay of Bengal across open waters to Indonesia. The species' total worldwide population is unknown.
"That's why this is so exciting," said Howard Rosenbaum, head of the ocean giants research programme at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the conservation group that made the discovery.
"Here you have this area where we have found nearly 6,000 animals, it gives us hope for protecting the entire species and their habitat."
This wider population estimate was presented Wednesday at the First International Conference on Marine Mammal Protected Areas at Hawaii in the US.
A previously unknown population of Irrawaddy dolphins has been discovered in Bangladesh, giving the scientists "great hope" for the survival of the rare species, conservationists said Wednesday, according to an internet report.
A research team estimated that 6,000 Irrawaddy dolphins thrive in the country's Sundarbans mangrove forests and nearby waters of the Bay of Bengal.
The group is the largest ever found, as, previously, scattered groups of only about a hundred Irrawaddy dolphins each had been found throughout the dolphin's Southeast Asian habitat, which stretches from the mouths of rivers feeding the Bay of Bengal across open waters to Indonesia. The species' total worldwide population is unknown.
"That's why this is so exciting," said Howard Rosenbaum, head of the ocean giants research programme at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the conservation group that made the discovery.
"Here you have this area where we have found nearly 6,000 animals, it gives us hope for protecting the entire species and their habitat."
This wider population estimate was presented Wednesday at the First International Conference on Marine Mammal Protected Areas at Hawaii in the US.