The cry of the dolphin

Pakistan has never been known for being a particularly kind place to animals. A recent report by the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P) looks at the fate of dolphins in the country. A study conducted by the WWF-P for the year 2012 has confirmed that 12,000 dolphins are killed every year in Pakistan. The figure is sobering to say the least. With the blind Indus dolphin, a native of the Indus river system, already facing extinction and already a rare sight due to overfishing and increasingly limited river channels, the sea dolphins of Pakistan are also under threat. Known to be an intelligent and inquisitive marine mammal, dolphins are an integral part of our marine ecosystem. The WWF-P research shows that an enormous number of dolphins are killed each year as bycatch, unfortunate victims of overfishing in our seas. The research says that each fishing vessel on average captures 24 dolphins a year. With 500 such vessels operational, the dolphin catch is extremely high. Being mammals, dolphins are unable to breathe underwater and must come to the surface of a water body to breathe. None were reported to have survived after being caught in nets. The dolphins trapped in tuna gillnets, used for capturing smaller fish, have no commercial value to fisherfolk who are looking to capture the yellowfin tuna.
Pakistan is one of the few countries in the world that still allows the use of gillnets for capturing different species of tuna. The report also shows disparity with government figures, estimating for example that the total catch was 47,000 tonnes from Sindh instead of the official statistics of 32,156 tonnes. The problem with using gillnets for capturing tuna is a high bycatch, which includes a number of species of turtle. With over 30 percent of the catch through these nets being useless, they are an inefficient method of fishing and also put a number of other species at risk. Some of the bycatch species, such as sharks, fetch a high commercial price which explains why fishermen continue with the practice. Pakistan, a signatory to the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission’s resolutions on catching shark, is not taking any measures to implement the resolutions. With September-November and January-March being the peak periods in which dolphins are killed, the government could expend its energy selectively and productively in protecting dolphins. The need for emergency measures to protect Pakistan’s dwindling dolphin population should be obvious.