The Snub-fin and the Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphin occupy a perilous conservation status. This is because there is insufficient knowledge of these dolphins to justify Commonwealth Government funding to develop conservation management plans.

A key priority of The Townsville Dolphins is to fill this knowledge gap.

In the mean time it is human activities that threaten the well being of the Townsville Dolphins. Key threats to Townsville Dolphins include:

All is not well in the world of dolphins.

Here is some news from China - two stories from late 2006.

First off, the Baijii, or the Yangste River Dolphin, was declared 'officially extinct' by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature following an extensive research program. After the previous search 10 years earlier, they predicted that the Baijii had 15 years left before extinction. It didn't last 15 years. So the white river dolphin is gone after living happily in the river for 20 million years.

Then, miraculously, as if to take our minds of the ecological holocoaust of unsustainable development, Mr Bao Xishun of Mongolia, the World's Tallest Man is hired to save two Bottlenose Dolphins in a Chinese oceanarium. The dolphins had swallowed pieces of plastic and had become very sick. The story goes that Mr Xishun stuck his extremely long arm down the dolphins' gullet and retrieved the plastic. And the dolphins lived happily ever after.

So, in summary, one Chinese dolphin species goes extinct, and shortly thereafter, two bottlenose dolphins in a oceanarium are saved from choking.

Which story do you think go the most press. Google it, find out.

Email your findings here.

Dolphin Conservation Documents and Links:

The Action Plan for Australian Cetaceans
J L Bannister, C M Kemper, R M Warneke
Australian Nature Conservation Agency
September 1996
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Review of the Conservation Status of Australia’s Smaller Whales and Dolphins
Graham J. B. Ross
February 2006
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