More decomposed dolphins float ashore in Bangladesh

By SM Najmus Sakib

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) - Two more half-decomposed bodies of dolphins were found Thursday on Kuakata beach on the southernmost tip of Bangladesh, taking the number of dead dolphins discovered so far this year to four, according to officials and a research organization.

Some fishermen spotted the bodies, which had washed ashore and were stuck in sea bushes along the beach, KM Bacchu, a member of the Kuakata Dolphin Protection Committee, told Anadolu.

“The dolphins seemed to have died some days before they washed onto the beach as both mammals were half decomposed. We immediately informed the forest officials and recovered the bodies,” he added.

Both dolphins were from the Irrawaddy dolphin species, he said. One of the dolphins was around eight feet long and the other was three feet long.

At least four dead dolphins have washed ashore this year, he added.

On May 5, the carcass of an Irrawaddy dolphin washed up in the Lembu Char area of Kuakata beach.

Abul Kalam Azad, Mahipur range officer of the Forest Department, said that upon receiving the news, they rushed to the spot and buried the dead dolphin in the sand

Sagarika Smriti, an associate researcher of the Ecofish-2 Bangladesh project of WorldFish, a research institute working on the Blue Ocean Economy, coastal environment and biodiversity, told Anadolu that the mammals could have gotten caught in fishermen's nets and died.

“We couldn’t primarily find any injury marks or confirm the cause of death immediately as the bodies were half-decomposed,” she said.

Smriti also confirmed that at least four dolphins have been found dead so far this year. At least 22 dolphins, mostly Irrawaddy, and two whales were found dead or washed ashore last year, according to their records.

- Aggressive fishing, climate change, sea pollution endanger dolphins

The Irrawaddy dolphin is threatened with extinction and has been put on the red list of threatened species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The main threat to the Irrawaddy dolphin is entanglement in gillnets.

Bangladesh has about 6,000 globally red listed Irrawaddy dolphins, which account for around 80% of the global population, according to experts.

“We see in our documentation with the help of fishermen in the Bay of Bengal when they fish that fishermen often hurt dolphins with bamboo or locally called oars or paddles when dolphins get stuck in a fishing net or strangle to death in a fishing net in the deep sea,” said Smriti.

“Dolphins are human-friendly marine mammals. They come close to fishing boats when fishermen stay in the deep sea for uninterrupted weeks, especially to be offered food or fish fishermen caught. But some of the fishermen out of ignorance hurt them, which often caused death,” she added.

Meanwhile, some dolphins get hurt by large vessels in the deep sea and later wash onto the beach, she said.

Being mammals, dolphins have to take in oxygen by making frequent trips to the water’s surface to catch a breath. If its mouth is stuck in a fishing net, it can’t catch a breath and dies, she added.

“Climate change and the rising sea temperature are major causes of the vulnerable situation of the mammals.

“The Bay of Bengal is polluted on a large scale. The canals of the area linked to the sea are full of garbage, including plastics. These finally reach the sea, polluting and damaging the sea’s biodiversity and ecological balance,” Smriti added.

“We have always asked to find out the exact reason and go for in-depth research to take sustainable measures to avoid such deaths of the endangered mammals and ensure the safe habitat of this biodiversity in the sea, but we see little progress.”