IUCN – SSC Cetacean Specialist Group

Mekong dolphins

IUCN – SSC Cetacean Specialist Group / Mekong dolphins
19 Mar 2022

Last Mekong dolphin in the Cambodia-Laos transboundary pool dies

  The most recent of the seven news items on this website concerning the Critically Endangered population of Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) in the Mekong River was posted almost exactly four years ago. Since that time, the information on this population in the Focal Taxa section...

02 Oct 2017

Update on Mekong River dams and river dolphins

  As mentioned in an article posted on this website on 8 February 2017, the construction of large dams in the mainstem of the Mekong River in Laos and Cambodia represents an existential threat to the small, Critically Endangered freshwater population of Orcaella brevirostris. Following the...

08 Feb 2017

Progress protecting Mekong River dolphins undermined by proposed dams

[caption id="attachment_2377" align="alignright" width="229"] Somany Phay, Frances Gulland, and H.E. Srun Limsong, Deputy Director General of the Fisheries Administration, Royal Government of Cambodia. Photo Credit: Peter Thomas[/caption]   In January 2017 an international workshop on the Critically Endangered freshwater population of dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) in the Mekong...

17 May 2016

Mekong River dolphin update

  Since the last news report on this website regarding Mekong River dolphins (posted 3 July 2014), the WWF-Cambodia team based in Kratie, working in collaboration with the Fisheries Department in Phnom Penh, have continued their valiant efforts to conserve and study this small, Critically Endangered...

03 Jul 2014

Update on Mekong and Ayeyarwady Irrawaddy dolphin conservation

  With support of the CSG, further steps were taken recently toward the conservation of two of Asia’s three riverine populations of Irrawaddy dolphins Orcaella brevirostris: in the Mekong of Cambodia and Laos and in the Ayeyarwady of Myanmar.   Mekong River Irrawaddy Dolphins The critically endangered Mekong River...

23 Jan 2012

Update on Mekong River Dolphins in Cambodia

  An international team of scientists, including several from the CSG, spent the week of 9-13 January 2012 in Cambodia working with Cambodian counterparts on efforts to refine understanding of the status of dolphins in the Mekong River (Orcaella brevirostris), determine cause(s) of the exceptionally high...