EXPERTS SAY MEKONG RIVER DOLPHIN WILL EXTINCT

By Puy Kea (Kyodo News, Phnom Penh) Phnom Penh Daily

KRATIE, Cambodia, March 30 Kyodo - Mekong River dolphin, rare specie remains in Cambodia and Laos will be in extinction in some decades of years, said Cambodian and foreign experts on dolphins.

''It remains about 60 dolphins in eastern provinces of Kratie and Stung Treng while about 20 in Laos,'' said Nao Thuok, Director of Project for Management of the Freshwater, Capture Fisheries of Cambodia and Assessment of Mekong Fisheries.

Today, the above provinces are one of the only places to see dolphins along the 4,200 kilometers of Mekong river.

The Mekong is the sixth largest river in the world. It flows from the southwest China to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. During the monsoons it swells flooding vast areas of Cambodia's interior. In the dry season the river contracts to a fast flowing torrent up to two kilometers wide.

Australian and Japanese experts who came to study the Mekong dolphins are very worried about the extinction of the specie, citing the number remains fewer, resulting from illegal fishing, lack of protection, illness and long-term breeding of the specie.

''Mekong dolphin delivers a baby at about every two years. In average, it has 2 to 2.8 meters in length,'' said Dr. Touch Seang Tana, the Cambodian specialist on dolphins.

He added Mekong dolphin is a mammal, living in fresh water. It delivers a baby after nine months of pregnancy. It can live longer than fifty years and it weighed from 150 to 200 kilograms.

Ung Soeun, a local fisherman at the village said ''there is no basic education on how to preserve dolphin and it's significance in the society, except it is a tamed mammal. Its oil is used as fuel and to cure disease of other animals such as cow and buffalo.''

He added ''floating logs from timber companies are also putting dolphins on higher endangered list.''

Sean Kin, chief of the Fisheries Office in Kratie said ''hand grenades, giant nets and electric shocking materials are popularly used by both Cambodian and Vietnamese fishermen to catch fish, those include the Mekong dolphins.''

The Mekong dolphin is called Irrawaddy Dolphin or Snubfin dolphin because they are originally found same type of specie in 1738, at Irrawaddy River in Myanmar, said Touch Seang Tana.

It is an enchanting animal with a constant smile on its face inhabits coastal, brackish and fresh waters of the tropical Indo-Pacific. The population in the Mekong River has declined dramatically due to many factors-pollution and man the most significant, he added.

Nao Thuok said when it delivers a birth, its aunt or grand aunt helps for delivering and its afterbirth is looked the same as human's.

The image of Cambodians as well as in fairy-tale, saying dolphin is reincarnated from human being.

It has many similar characteristics to human beings. Especially, a week-old-dolphin baby looks identical to a human baby, the expert said.

Cambodia's Ministry of Tourism, targeting to set up a new tourist destination besides the unique historical temple of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap province.

''As a whole picture of Cambodia, at one point in time, Angkor Wat has to have its limitation, at that time we give them another destination. Tourists can go to see Mekong River dolphins on a cruise to Mekong to see their natural habitats,'' Pou Sovachana, former undersecretary of state for tourism told Kyodo News.

He added that Mekong river dolphin and its animal and aquatic life are a natural heritage for Cambodian people and are a legacy for younger generation to witness and to see that those endangered specie still alive.

Cambodia's traditional fairy-tale about Dolphin is popularly spoken out one to another.

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful lady who was forced to marry a python. She made suicide by diving into the river and than transformed to be a dolphin.

In Laos, fisherfolk tells of dolphins saving humans from the jaws of crocodiles.

Mekong River dolphin has shorter head and nose than normal dolphin, said the expert.

In every day life, rare people have seen Dolphins by their own sights, instead they see them by drawing pictures, in which falsifying its head down to waist is a man, and the waist downward is fish with tail.

Fishermen rarely kill Mekong dolphins as they are refrained from the above fairy-tale, but those were killed indirectly by electrocution and giant nets.

Traditionally, the dolphin was neither hunted nor its meat eaten. Some Cambodian believed they would never catch another fish if they touch the animal.

But in the ''killing fields'' regime of Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979, Mekong dolphins were killed to get oil for boat machines and lanterns.

''Five dolphins were killed per day during Khmer Rouge regime in the great lake of Tonle Sap,'' said Nao Thuok, asserting he met with the mammal butcher. Adding that ''one dolphin can provide 25 kilograms of oil.''

Before 1975, there remained more than 1,000 dolphins. They swam back and forth down to Tonle Sap and up to their habitats in Kratie and Stung Treng, he said.

It can swim up to 42 km (25 miles) per hour exceeding that of most speedboats, he added.

On fishing day, fisherman believes that he is unlucky if seeing Mekong dolphin or it is trapped in the net, believing he would never catch fish anymore in the day.

But the expert said what the fisherman believed ''was true'' because wherever Mekong dolphin is, fewer fish or no fish appear in the nearby location because Mekong dolphin eats smaller fish, river snails and clams.

Although the number of Mekong River dolphins is small, it's not impossible to observe the fresh water mammals in the wild. About 17 kilometers south of Kratie town, known as Prek Kampi village where about a half dozen dolphins spend afternoons hunting and playing about 10 meters offshore. Local villagers say they appear both morning and afternoon but every day afternoon around 3 p.m. is the more regular time for them to play and hunt.

Local villagers are waiting to bring visitors by riverboats to see those dolphins with 10 meters distant from them. It costs about 10,000 riels

($2.63) for a few hours.

The other interesting scenery at the dolphin habitat--is seen hundreds of tiny islands with green grass and small bushes of river plants.