Two blind dolphins found dead in Khanpur Mahar canal

GHOTKI: Local people found two blind dolphins dead dolphins in a canal in Khanpur Mahar in Ghotki district, ARY News reported on Sunday.

The carcasses of the two dead mammals were recovered by local villagers from the canal.

The dolphins could likely be stranded during the closure period of Sukkur barrage in January to the canal.

Indus River Dolphins are grey-brown in colour, sometimes with a pinkish belly, and measure between 1.5 metres and 2.5 metres in length, weighing a maximum of 90 kg.

It is to be mentioned here that last year two dolphins were reported dead in the months of October and December.

One of them, a juvenile blind Indus dolphin, was stranded from its habitat to Sukkur Barrage’s Mirwah canal, in Khairpur’s Faiz Ganj taluka.

A survey conducted in 2019 concluded that the total population of dolphins in the canal between Guddu and Sukkur Barrages was 1,419 at the time.

A rare blind dolphin was also found dead in the Indus River near Kandhkot in Sindh’s Kashmore district in January 2020.

The local residents found blind dolphin dead on the bank of river Indus when they went for wood cutting. They were of the view that blind dolphin might have died due to the poisonous chemical, put by fishermen in water to catch fishes.