Pink Dolphins in Amazon River slaughtered as bait
Pink dolphins in the Amazon River are being caught and slaughtered by fishermen to be used as baits.
The gentle and friendly pink dolphins are the easy targets for fishermen. Because they are harmless and curious, they became easy targets as they swim up close to the fishing boats and into the nets fearlessly.
This pink and friendly aquatic mammal lives along the Amazon River. Based on the aquatic researchers, they have seen a large number of corpses of this placid mammal along the riverbanks. The researchers increased their warnings about the growing threats to this species that are already extinct in some parts of the world.
The top aquatic mammal expert of Institute of Amazonian Research, Vera da Silva, said that the population of the river dolphins in the world will subside, if the fishermen are still going to continue haunting those good-natured aquatic animals. The researchers studied an area of 27,000 acres and monitored it for almost 17 years. In their study, they discovered that the population of the dolphins along the area has declined by seven percent every year.
Their data showed that over 1,500 dolphins are killed per annum.
The researchers first found the bodies of these mammals along the riverbanks in the year 2000. The bodies are obviously killed by human, the way their fleshes were cut away into quarters.
The government acknowledges that there are existing problem with regard to illegal slaughter of dolphins without permission from the government. Still, the killings became an ordinary thing for the fisherman and the residents around the area. Thinking that the Amazon’s wild animals belong to what the government are trying to conserved and protect. However, only a little thing is done to accomplish their goals and policies to stop it.
A little number of agents deployed in the area and has a tasked to protect the wildlife; they are only consists of less than five members. They are in charge of protecting the wild life covering two- thirds of the state.
The killings of dolphins can be seen in a situation were in poor people can make money out of the mammal’s flesh. Basically, fisherman can catch up to 500 kilograms of piracatinga, a kind of cat fish. Fishermen used dolphin’s flesh to catch this kind of catfish. Working overnight, fisherman can earn $550 if they will sell the catfish for 50 cents per kilo. This means that in fishing, you can double up the minimum monthly wage in Brazil with the use of the dolphin’s flesh as bait.
Short URL: http://www.sandiegonewsnet.org/?p=793
Posted by Mitch
on Jul 10 2010. Filed under Breaking News.
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