The world’s press is getting very excited by the news that researchers have discovered thousands of a thought-to-be-rare dolphin frolicking in the Bay of Bengal. All is not what it seems however.
The story goes that the Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) was thought to be in serious trouble. It is listed on the IUCN’s ‘Red List’ as vulnerable, with several sub-populations deemed to be critically endangered. Now a new press release from the Wildlife Conservation Society says:
WCS researchers have discovered a stronghold for one of the world’s rarest freshwater dolphins, the Irrawaddy, deep in the waterlogged jungles of Bangladesh. The scientists counted nearly 6,000 of the dolphins in the South Asian country’s Sundarbans mangrove forest and the adjacent waters of the Bay of Bengal.
“This discovery gives us great hope that there is a future for Irrawaddy dolphins,” says Brian Smith, study author and researcher at the WCS. “Bangladesh clearly serves as an important sanctuary for Irrawaddy dolphins, and conservation in this region should be a top priority.”
The finding has just been presented to a conference in Hawaii, although it was published last year in Journal of Cetacean Research and Management, says the WCS. Here’s where things get a bit more complicated. As Andrew Revkin at the New York Times notes, this population was discovered back in 2004. It is not “previously unknown”, as one report has it.
The IUCN red list itself says that there are likely to be 5,383 irrawaddy dolphins in the coastal waters of Bangladesh, based on number from Smith et al. 2005. Exactly the same number is listed in Smith’s 2008 Journal of Cetacean Research and Management report (pdf, page 76). The abstract of this research suggests they did not actually count all these dolphins, they estimated the population from those they did see.
Finding new populations of at risk animals is great. Generating new publicity by re-announcing information that has already been largely incorporated into risk assessments is less great.
Image: WCS / Alice Rocco