Union to protect the Bolivian river dolphin.

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Hunting, fishing, pollution and habitat degradation and loss are the main threats faced by the Bolivian dolphin, a species of river dolphin found in protected areas in the country.
For nearly three decades, scientists have engaged local commercial fishermen in an effort to document and monitor the landlocked country's unique cetacean.
A team of reporters joined them to sail kilometers upriver during the most recent population census.
Paul Van Damme and Fortuna Vargas Mejía met years ago in Puerto Villarroel, a town in the Bolivian department of Cochabamba. Van Damme was a Belgian marine biologist who found in the lagoons of the Bolivian Amazon “the closest thing to a sea.” Vargas was a native of Cochabamba who had worked as a navigator for years before becoming a fisherman, so he knew well the Amazonian rivers and lagoons that so fascinated the European scientist.

At that time—the s—commercial fishing was just beginning to take off in Puerto Villarroel, a municipality located on the banks of the Ichilo River in the Mamoré basin, which includes three departments of the Bolivian Amazon. “In one day and one night I caught , kilograms of fish, because there weren't many of us,” recalled Vargas, who is now years old and has not worked as a fisherman for years.

Until then, the area and its forests had been well preserved and were home to a largely indigenous population. The Moxo and Yuqui indigenous people lived in communities along the banks of the river, living primarily from hunting, fishing, and subsistence agriculture. Gradually, people from other parts of Bolivia began to move to the urban center of Puerto Villarroel and its s  Special Data  urroundings, eventually making it the main and largest commercial port connecting the west and east of Bolivia.



Van Damme was interested in studying how fish species and humans interacted, and Vargas Mejía took him and his team aboard his boat, allowing them to conduct research on the behavior and biological traits of living species. in the region. These investigations eventually led to the study of the bufeo or river dolphin ( Inia boliviensis ), a species endemic to the Madera River basin, whose largest population is in Bolivia.

As a predator of small and medium-sized migratory fish, the presence of the river dolphin is considered an indicator of the health of aquatic and riparian habitat. In other words: it is very sensitive to any change in the ecosystem, so its absence or decrease in number is usually due to some type of alteration in the environment.

Van Damme therefore began collecting data on river dolphins , and Vargas Mejía assisted him in this task.

It didn't take long for researchers to identify unsustainable commercial fishing as one of the threats facing dolphins. However, far from seeing the fishermen as a threat, Van Damme saw that as he had demonstrated the friendship he had forged with Vargas Mejía, the union of scientists with the fishermen was the best strategy for the conservation of the animal. Van Damme was convinced that by participating in scientific research, fishermen would come to understand the importance of protecting river dolphins and therefore care for them, and that is exactly what happened.

To find out more, a team of reporters recently traveled from Puerto Villarroel to Camiaco, within the Gran Mojos Municipal Conservation Area of ​​Beni, and sailed kilometers ( miles) down the river with scientists and fishermen to follow the most recent dolphin count. Bolivian.

The iconic Bolivian river dolphin
In murky waters like those of the Ichilo River, the dolphin was often seen swaying to the rhythm of the waves and then disappearing, and it was a mystery where it would rear its head. Sometimes, when the observation boat passed through warmer, clearer waters, small groups of - dolphins would appear in groups, showing no signs of fear of the nearby boat and appearing to play with each other. They have been seen using their tails to throw eels "like balls" at each other.

Last year, nature photographer Alejandro de los Ríos captured a pair of dolphins with an anaconda in their mouths. It is not known if they were playing with it or about to devour it, but the image appeared in media outlets around the world, including the New York Times. . Fishermen say that when the animal is in a group, there is always one who stands guard to warn the rest of the group of any danger, "like a communication whistle," as Raúl Vásquez, a -year-old young man who has been fishing since he It was a boy, he described it.