Irrawaddy Dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris)

IUCN Red List: Data Deficient CITES Appendix II

The Irrawaddy Dolphin is a warm-water species lives in the deep water of the Upper Mekong River between Laos and Cambodia and possibly, the Sekong River.



Cambodian myth
According to the Cambodian myth, people believed that the Irrawaddy Dolphin is a fair maiden who has the body of a fish.

As the story goes, a beautiful maiden was forced by her parents to marry a magical python but decided to cast herself into the Mekong River. Her suicide bid failed and she was transformed into a dolphin.

Sacred animal
The dolphin is regarded to be a sacred animal by both Khmer and Lao, and is rarely hunted and consumed as food by local people.

However, quite often it becomes accidentally entangled in fishing nets trap by fishermen. As a result, the population figures of the Irrawaddy Dolphin, estimated to be as low as 70-100 individuals, are becoming scarcer and scarcer and is decreasing at an alarming speed. Also, its habitat is vulnerable to dams and other infrastructure development in the area.

Eco-tourism development
Nevertheless, the future potential for conservation of the Irrawaddy Dolphin may well be in the forces of eco-tourism development.

The good news is that the Cambodian government has already planned to set up a new tourist destination based on dolphin watching in Kratie province besides the unique historical temple of Angkor Wat.

If the whole plan works well, we hope that the economic incomes from tourists will at last protect the last remaining and precarious population of this human-like river dolphin, before it is simply too late.