Dead dolphins – another possible cause

A dead dolphin was spotted washed up on the shore in Butterworth on Sunday. Blog reader Batu Ferringhian suggests another reason why dolphins are dying:

Saw a lot of dolphins swimming in Batu Ferringhi yesterday evening around 7.00pm and two days before. Dolphin sightings are pretty frequent these past few months.

This particular dead dolphin happens to be rare – ‘Indo Pacific Bottlenose dolphins’, its grey and pinkish pigment is a dead giveaway. People often mistaken them to be ‘Pink Dolphins’, which are primarily fresh water dolphins.

Seeing the frequency of dolphins around the island, the government should do something to protect them. Trawler boats are still being used and boats should be controlled. I have seen a few dead dolphins washed up with signs of being sliced from the boat propellers.

Here’s to hoping more Penangites will take interest into this matter.

Wikipedia confirms that these dolphins are threatened by environmental degradation and fisheries:

The species is not considered to be endangered; its near-shore distribution, though, makes it vulnerable to environmental degradation, direct exploitation, and problems associated with local fisheries.[11]

The major predators of this species are typically sharks, and may include humans, killer whales (Orcinus orca) and sting rays. In the early 1980s, many were deliberately killed in a Taiwanese driftnet fishery in the Arafura Sea, off northwestern Australia.[12]