CNN
The Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin population inhabits a 190-kilometer (118-mile) stretch of the Mekong River between Cambodia and Laos, the WWF said.
Since 2003, the population has suffered 88 deaths, more than 60 percent of which were calves less than 2 weeks old, the WWF said.
Only an estimated 64 to 76 dolphins are in the river, the group said.
“Necropsy analysis identified a bacterial disease as the cause of the calf deaths,” Dove said. “This disease would not be fatal unless the dolphins’ immune systems were suppressed, as they were in these cases, by environmental contaminants.”
Researchers found toxic levels of pesticides such as DDT and environmental contaminants such as PCBs in the dead dolphin calves. The pollutants also might endanger people along the Mekong who consume the same fish and water as the dolphins, the group said.
Researchers also found high levels of mercury in some of the dead dolphins. Mercury weakens the immune system, making the animals more susceptible to disease. The mercury might come from gold mining, the WWF said.
The group called for a cross-border preventive health program to manage the diseased animals and reduce their deaths.
Visit the place where the most northerly pods of Irrawaddy Dolphins remain on The Mekong… Ramsar Site 999