Of all the real cetacean-related news today, the biggest news seems to concern the Irrawaddy dolphin.
Irrawaddy Dolphins, a species found in brackish Asian waters, was thought potentially to be on the verge of extinction. But now there are published reports that American and Bangladeshi scientists have found a thriving population of over 6,000 of these dolphins along the coastline of Bangladesh.
But according to scientists who worked on the survey, the news isn’t all good. Irrawaddy dolphins continue to be at risk due to entanglement in fishing nets, decline in freshwater flows due to dam construction, and global warming (which could restrict range by decreasing low salinity water habitat as glaciers melt).
According to the NY Times article, fresh water and brackish water mammals are particularly vulnerable these days:
Dolphin and porpoise species that have adapted to rivers and deltas around the world have long been considered some of the most vulnerable of marine mammals because of their restricted habitats. In 2007, experts concluded that the baiji, a river dolphin that thrived in the Yangtze River for 20 million years in what is today China, had been driven extinct by a variety of activities by the nearly half billion people now living in that watershed.
The vaquita, a porpoise living in waters where the Colorado River empties into the Gulf of California, is critically endangered, biologists say, depleted by fishing nets and the disruptions in the river’s flow from dam construction.
SeaWorld has produced some video of dolphins at Discovery Cove in Orlando blowing air bubble rings and playing with them. They say that over time more and more dolphins, mostly female, have learned the trick. I haven’t found any reports of dolphins doing this in the wild, so perhaps it’s possible that their creativity is born from their miserably boring lives of captivity.
South Carolina Democrats, led by Sen. Phil Leventis, support the whale as the state marine animal. Republican Sens. Paul Campbell and Chip Campsen have filed a separate bill that would instead designate the dolphin as the state marine mammal.
The NOAA released the video to let people know that feeding wild dolphins is illegal, harmful to dolphins, and disruptive to their natural behavior and habitat.
To make the “The Cove,” filmmakers used hidden mics and cameras to get footage of Japanese fisherman using sonar to lure dolphins into the cove where they are butchered. The production team was lead by Richard O’Barry (the guy who trained dolphins in “Flipper”) and Ocean Preservation Society co-founder Louie Psihoyos.
The carpetbatter blog at nytimes.com says the film is clearly intended to shock and to mobilize and that “It is not for the weak of stomach, or heart.”
Expect wide distribution and decent marketing: Lionsgate also handled US distribution for “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “Sicko” and “Religulous.” Roadside released “Super Size Me.”
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