In late April, Andy participated in a two-day workshop on the conservation of Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) in the Mekong River, Cambodia. The workshop was convened by WWF’s Greater Mekong Project, supported by WWF and the Marine Mammal Commission and involved international scientists from the IUCN Cetacean Specialist Group, staff from WWF Cambodia and representatives from the Fisheries Administration of Cambodia. The meeting focused on the present status of this endangered population (numbering about 80 animals) and the threats posed by entanglement in gill net fisheries and hydroelectric development. A third day of meetings addressed the status of this species in Ayeyarwaddy River in Myanmar.
Julia Goss, a CEM graduate from 2013, has been working on the behavior of Mekong River dolphins in Cambodia, supported by a Fulbright Fellowship. Julia gave a great presentation on the initial results of her field work, which is focused on determining whether infanticide could be responsible for the frequent deaths of neonatal dolphins in this population. She is doing important work – and you can find out more about life in Cambodia and the pleasures and demands of conducting field work in a remote part of Cambodia on her excellent blog Cambodia Chronicles. Julia is also co-mentoring a Cambodian master’s student, Hong SeangAun.
The good news is that in the part of the population Julia has been monitoring, so far all the calves born this year are still alive. We are keeping our fingers crossed for the future of this fragile population, which does so much to bring ecotourism to central Cambodia.
