Rare dolphins ‘doomed’ without speedy action

Press, 16 August 1988, Page 35

Rare dolphins ‘doomed’ without speedy action

By

KATHY WILHELM

NZPA-AP Peking The Yangtze River dolphin is rarer than the panda but also less famous and less cuddly, and that means it may be doomed, says an American dolphin trainer, Ric O’Barry. The huggable, black-and-white visage of a panda looking out from World Wildlife Fund advertisements around the world has helped raise thousands of dollars to save the fewer than 1000 pandas left in Chinese forests. But there are no international fundraising efforts to save the 200 to 300 squinty-eyed, bat-nosed river dolphins. They are dying out because their only native home, China’s Yangtze River, is becoming more congested and polluted. That’s where O’Barry comes in. The trainer of the world’s most famous dolphin, Flipper, who starred in a United States television series in the 19605, O’Barry recently met Chinese dolphin experts in the city of Wuhan. Now he is heading back to the United States to try to launch an emergency campaign to save the dying dolphins. “They’re beautiful. They're bright and very friendly,” he said. “I’m afraid these dolphins may be doomed.” O’Barry’s Chinese colleagues were more optimistic, but agreed speedy action was needed.

“The number of dolphins has reached a critical level,” said Liu Renjun, an associate professor at the Wuhan Institute of Hydrobiology.

“The dolphins can be protected,” he said, but only with hard work and thousands of dollars that China lacks. The Yangtze River dolphins are relatives of the common dolphin found worldwide. Like the common dolphin, they grow to more than 2.1 m and have a dorsal fin. Their snouts are narrower, “like a small baseball bat,” O’Barry said, and their skin is whiter.

Both kinds rely mainly on sonar to find food and navigate — and this is part of the river dolphins’ problem. The Yangtze River, long a commercial thoroughfare, has become jammed with boats whose engine roars confuse the

dolphins’ sonar. Scientists think the hum of propellers often lures dolphins to their death.

Commercial fishing is depleting their food source, and many dolphins get caught on fishermen’s hooks. Industrial pollution sickens those who survive. Only two exist in captivity, in a cement tank at the Wuhan institute. There, Liu and about two dozen researchers are trying to learn more about river dolphins, especially how to breed them. No river dolphin has ever been born in captivity. The team is trying to collect sperm from its nine-year-old male dolphin to artificially inseminate a four-year-old female Liu said is still two or three years from sexual maturity. O’Barry said he watched the spermcollecting efforts “and they’re not getting anywhere.” What’s more, he said, the concrete tank was not conducive to dolphin romance: “Their sonar bounces off the walls and that’s alien to them ... And they’re not used to sv/imming in circles.” O’Barry and the Chinese agree on the need to set up a sanctuary along the Yangtze River where the dolphins can live naturally but with special protection from fishermen and traffic. Liu said the institute had found a potential site upstream from Wuhan where many river dolphins congregated naturally. The project will cost as much as SUSBI,OOO ($126,360), but so far the institute has no money.

Another dolphin expert, Dr Zhou Kaiya of Nanjing Normal University, has started building a large holding pond for dolphins further downstream in Anhui province in the channel between two Yangtze islands.

O’Barry was enthusiastic about both plans, and said he would ask United States companies doing business in China to help underwrite them. He also hoped to use his old Hollywood connections to organise a televised fundraiser for the dolphins. “I think this is the last chance,” O’Barry said.