Indus blind dolphins Rascue opration

According to Hussain Bux Bhagat, a conservator in the Sindh Wildlife Department, on information that a blind dolphin had been spotted stranded in Dadu canal, a team reached the spot and started a rescue operation. Bhagat said it took six hours for the team to safely extricate the dolphin from the canal, and the animal was later released in the Indus river near Sadhu Bello temple.
It was a baby female dolphin, weighing about 20 kilograms, 4 feet long and aged between 3 to 4 years, he added.
According to the IUCN’s Red Data List — which lists threatened and endangered species —the Indus blind dolphin (Platanista minor-indi) was the second most threatened sweet water dolphin species, next only to the Chinese river dolphin, called the Baiji.
The Indus dolphin, locally called the Bulhan, is a unique freshwater mammal that is only found in Pakistan.
Historically the Indus blind dolphin used to be found in abundance throughout the 3,500 kilometre stretch of the Indus River system and its tributaries – the Ravi, Chenab, Jhelum, Sutlej Rivers, etc – from the Himalayan foothills to the delta.
Presently its habitat has shrunk to less than 900km between the Jinnah and Sukkur Barrages, owing to the construction of various reservoirs, dams and barrages to divert the river water for agricultural purposes.
The construction of dams and barrages on the Indus River has changed the distribution and movement pattern of the dolphins and has divided its populations in to four or five sub-populations, which live in isolated pockets between these barrages.
The bulk of the dolphin population has been living within Sindh in an approximately 190km strip of the Indus between the Guddu and Sukkur barrages that was declared a dolphin reserve in 1974. Here this unique species is offered complete protection from netting, hunting and poaching under the provincial wildlife protection laws.
The Indus dolphins do not have a crystalline eye lens, rendering them effectively blind, although they are still able to detect the intensity and direction of light. Sources said that the blindness was
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