Ganges River Dolphin

Ganges River Dolphin News

• Areas where dolphins have been witnessed: Dolphins have also been seen in Brijghat, Narora, Kanpur, Mirzapur and Varanasi, areas of the state.
• Improvements in water quality: The government of Uttar Pradesh claims to have successfully stopped flowing of more than 460 MLD of sewage into the Ganga in the State.
• Improvement has been seen in dissolved oxygen (DO), biochemical demand (BOD) and fecal coliform (FC) parameters.

Ganges River Dolphin Facts

Ganges River Dolphin and Namami Gange Programme

• Launched in 2014, the central-sector initiative aims to rejuvenate Ganga River by adopting an integrated approach which focused on the interception and diversion of sewage by tapping the drains flowing into the river.
• It has been operated under the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti.
• Implementation of the programme is done by the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), and its state counterpart organizations State Program Management Groups (SPMGs).
• Budgetary outlay: It has a Rs. 20,000-crore, centrally funded, non-lapsable corpus.
• Main pillars of the initiative:
  • Sewerage Treatment Infrastructure
  • River-Front Development
  • River-Surface Cleaning
  • Biodiversity
  • Industrial Effluent Monitoring.
  • Ganga Gram.

Ganges River Dolphins in India

• The Ganges is a 2510 km long trans-boundary river flowing through India and Bangladesh. The river basin encompasses India, China, Nepal and Bangladesh.
• In Bangladesh, it is known as Padma. Together with Jamuna (Brahmaputra), they flow into the Bay of Bengal.
• Origin: The headwater of the river originates from the Gangotri glacier in the state of Uttarakhand in form of Bhagirathi river.
  • The confluence of Bhagirathi and Alaknanda rivers at Devprayag gives rise to the Ganges river.
• Tributaries:
  • Right-bank tributaries: Yamuna, Tons, Son, Punpun
  • Left-bank tributaries: Gomati, Ghaghara, Gandak, Kosi

Other Species Of River Dolphins In The World

Dolphins

Irrawaddy River Dolphin

Details

• Irrawaddy dolphins are found in coastal areas in South and Southeast Asia, and in three rivers: the Irrawaddy (Myanmar), the Mahakam (Indonesian Borneo) and the Mekong.
• They are also found on the eastern coast of India, especially near the Chilika lake.

Indus River Dolphin

• Indus dolphins can only be found in the lower parts of the Indus River in Pakistan and in River Beas, a tributary of the Indus River, in India.
• They are functionally blind and rely on echolocation to navigate, communicate and hunt prey.

Amazon River Dolphin

• The Amazon river dolphin (pink river dolphin or boto) lives only in freshwater.
• It is found across the Amazon and Orinoco river basins in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela.

Yangtze River Dolphin

• Known as baiji, this is possibly extinct species of freshwater dolphin native to the Yangtze river system in China.
• It is believed to be the first dolphin species driven to extinction due to the humans.

Tucuxi Dolphin

• Tucuxi dolphins are found in the central Amazon river basin, across Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
• The species’ range largely overlaps that of the Amazon river dolphin. However, they can be easily distinguished from Amazon dolphins.

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