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Gland, Switzerland (pte022/21.03.2005/13:00) - Asia's river dolphins are in danger of becoming extinct due to rivers being dammed and declining water quality, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) http://www.wwf.org .
As the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk reports, once-thriving populations are being threatened by human activity, and only a handful of individuals of a local species of dolphins are now left in China's Yangtze River.
According to the WWF, fresh water dolphins are key indicators of the health of rivers - not just because of the direct effects of low water quality on them, but because they prey on fish which are themselves sensitive to the state of their environment. As the BBC reports, distinct species of dolphin inhabit the Yangtze, the Ganges, the Indus and the rivers of South East Asia. Only 13 individuals now survive in the Yangtze River, whereas elsewhere they are numbered in thousands.
The WWF cites industrial and agricultural pollution as a major problem. Residues of pesticide and herbicides have been founding dolphin tissues. Another growing problem is human sewage, as is the damming of rivers, which restricts the dolphins' natural ranges and destroys the spawning grounds for the species of fish they prey on. According to the WWF, abstraction of water from the rivers makes the problems significantly worse - only 5 per cent of the water in the Ganges reaches the sea.
However, the WWF is not only concerned with the survival of some of nature's more elegant species. According to the global conservation body, the plight of dolphins should alert us to the risk to humans of low-quality water. Furthermore, solutions that help dolphins can also help the hundreds of millions who live along the banks of Asia's great rivers, the WWF says.
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