IUCN – SSC Cetacean Specialist Group

The Cetacean Specialist Group promotes and facilitates
The Cetacean Specialist Group promotes and facilitates
The Cetacean Specialist Group promotes and facilitate
The Cetacean Specialist Group promotes and facilitates
The Cetacean Specialist Group promotes and facilitates

24th October is Freshwater Dolphin Day!

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The 24th October is International Freshwater Dolphin Day. Declared at the “Workshop on Establishing Protected Areas for Freshwater Cetaceans” in East Kalimantan, Indonesia in October 2009, International Freshwater Dolphin Day will be celebrated by many events across the world.

In India, Ganges River dolphin awareness rallies will be held in villages. Activities will include a boat safari to visit the dolphins, media press release, street theater, poster and drawing competitions, and informational lectures on the dolphins and the rivers they inhabit.

Along the Mahakam River in Indonesia, home to a critically endangered population of Irrawaddy dolphins, school education campaigns will be held to celebrate Freshwater Dolphin Day. The day will also be marked by finalizing the management plan for a river dolphin Protected Area in West Kutai District, and it is hoped that an official community agreement will be reached for establishment of a second dolphin Protected Area in Central Kutai. A National Conservation Strategy Action Plan for Mahakam dolphins from 2010-2020 has been developed under assignment of the General Directorate Conservation of Nature Department, Forestry Department.

In Bangladesh International Freshwater Dolphin Day is being marked with a month-long celebration. During the first week of October, the Bangladesh Forest Department approved the boundaries for three new wildlife sanctuaries for Ganges and Irrawaddy dolphins in the Eastern Sundarbans mangrove forest and forwarded the notification document to the Ministry of Environment and Forests for final approval. All three Wildlife Sanctuaries are based on recommendations from the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bangladesh Cetacean Diversity Project (BCDP), which has been working on freshwater dolphin conservation in the Sundarbans since 2002. The BCDP also convened a one-day training course on freshwater dolphin survey techniques for a team of 18 local and international scientists and university students. This was followed by a survey of dolphins in the Sundarbans mangrove forest. October also saw the initiation of an exciting new project, led by Nadia Richman of the Zoological Society of London, to study Ganges dolphins in the Karnaphuli-Sangu river system of southeastern Bangladesh.

 

Fiordland bottlenose dolphin population redlisted as Critically Endangered

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The Fiordland subpopulation of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) inhabits the fiords and bays of Fiordland, a mountainous, rainforest-covered World Heritage Area in the southwest of New Zealand’s South Island. These dolphins are at the southern limit of the species’ global range and recent studies have shown them to be genetically and geographically isolated from bottlenose dolphins elsewhere in New Zealand.

The subpopulation was estimated to consist of only205 individuals in 2008, of which 123 were mature. In a Population Viability Analysis, more than two thirds of the model runs predicted a decline of > 25% over one generation and more than a third predicted a decline of > 80% over three generations. As a result, the Fiordland Bottlenose Dolphin subpopulation was assessed as Critically Endangered (A3bcd;C1). For the full assessment, which was completed in 2010, see https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/194300/67107359.

New Red List Assessments for Two Species of Finless Porpoises

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CSG member John Wang and collaborators recently presented strong morphological and molecular evidence for reproductive isolation of two main forms of finless porpoises in sympatry, leading to the conclusion that there are at least two biological species: the Indo-Pacific finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) and the narrow-ridged finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis). The latter has two recognized subspecies: the Yangtze finless porpoise (N. a. asiaeorientalis) and the East Asian finless porpoise (N. a. sunameri). View the list of marine mammal species and subspecies recognized by the Society for Marine Mammalogy’s Committee of Taxonomy.

One consequence of the revised taxonomy of finless porpoises was the need for separate IUCN Red List assessments.  New assessments of the two species were included in the Red List in 2011. Both species were assessed as Vulnerable (A2cde) based on the fact that they are experiencing high and likely unsustainable levels of mortality in fisheries over much of their range, with essentially no mitigation of this threat anywhere finless porpoises exist. The evidence of large declines in several regions led assessors to infer species-wide declines of at least 30% over the past three generations.

Although the primary immediate threat to finless porpoises comes from fisheries, they are also at risk from habitat degradation or destruction, pollution, and noise, especially given that they live in coastal waters adjacent to some of the densest concentrations of humans in the world.  Difficulties of studying finless porpoises, which are small, lack a dorsal fin and avoid vessels, have meant that we lack even some of the most basic biological information about them (e.g., number of species/subspecies, population structure and abundance).  For all of these reasons, there is great concern about the future of these animals.

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IUCN – SSC Cetacean Specialist Group

The Cetacean Specialist Group promotes and facilitates the conservation of cetaceans worldwide. It functions as a catalyst, clearing house, and facilitator for cetacean-related research and conservation action.

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The IUCN published Red List update 2025-2 on October 10th, coinciding with the 2025 World Conservation Congress.
Nov 28, 2025
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