By Monica Machicao
LA PAZ (Reuters) – Rescue ships and drones worked for three days last week across a lush expanse of Bolivia’s Amazon rainforest to locate a pair of trapped pink dolphins, a species threatened by constant encroachment along the waterways that colorful mammals call home.
The two dolphins were discovered languishing in calm-water ponds separated from the Rio Grande of the Bolivian Amazon after swimming inland and the main channel collapsed, according to Claudia Venega, a biologist with a rescue program.
He explained that many pink dolphins get lost in the river because of their reproductive instincts.
“When women pass by to give birth, they look for quieter places and leave the river in search of quieter backwaters,” Venega said, noting that other women sign up to help raise calves and teach them how to fish.
In the past twelve years, about 60 trapped pink river dolphins, known scientifically as Inia boliviensis, have been rescued, he added.
The pink complexion of dolphins is due to the blood vessels near their skin, some specimens are blue or even white.
While scientists have documented only a handful of freshwater dolphin species, pink river dolphins are the largest, measuring up to nine feet long (2. 7 meters) and weighing around three hundred pounds (136 kg).
Considered semi-divine creatures by some indigenous groups, they use echolocation to navigate murky channels. But their populations have shrunk dramatically with deforestation, according to the researchers.
Sharol Deem, a member of the rescue program, told Reuters that efforts to conserve the species were aimed at even broader ecological goals.
“That’s actually one of the beauties of this task right now,” he said, noting that efforts to examine and protect “this magical creature” can help the environmental sustainability of all species, adding to humans.
(Reporting by Monica Machicao; Writing through David Alire García; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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