Local folklore of the Mising people (an indigenous community) has facilitated a reverence for rivers and their wild inhabitants over the centuries. The story features a Mising woman named Yakashi, who was inept at household chores. As people from her community grew bored of her incompetence, they decided to throw Yakashi in the river. However, instead of drowning, she turned into a dolphin.
- Assam’s Brahmaputra and the tributaries Kulsi and Subansiri are strongholds of the endangered Gangetic river dolphin. However, local communities and researchers note decline in populations.
- Dolphins in the Kulsi river are affected by relentless mechanised sand mining on the banks.
- The construction of dams in several regions in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh cut through dolphin habitats and limit the access to prey.
- Dolphins are more or less extinct in the Barak river system, with a handful found in tributaries such as Kushiyara and Soorma.
The Mising people don’t kill the Gangetic river dolphins, or ‘xihus’ as they are known locally in Assam. However, they have noticed a decline in dolphin populations over the years. Krishna Pegu, a Mising farmer from the river island Majuli (in Assam) says, “Even a few years back, we would see pods of dolphins regularly. However, now we might only sporadically see a dolphin near Majuli.”
Rapidly declining populations
The Gangetic river dolphin, which is both the national aquatic animal and state aquatic animal of Assam, is a Schedule-1 species under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and is also considered ‘endangered’ by the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN). While dolphins once thrived in Assam, across Brahmaputra and its tributaries like Kulsi and Subansiri, the species is currently struggling. When the action plans were formulated for their revival, conservationist and journalist Mubina Akhtar told Mongabay-India that most of these plans failed to create the desired impact.
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