The Wonderful Dolphins of the Ayeyarwady River

The Ayeyarwady dolphins(Orcaella brevirostris)live in the Ayeyarwady river of Myanmar. This river flows down from way up north, having its sources in the glaciers of the eastern Himalayas, until it reaches the Bay of Bengal. But in the stretch of the river between Mingun and Sintgu there is a group of these dolphins who had made friends with the fishers from the surrounding villages/
The fishers from these villages had formed a rapport with the dolphins. They go out in their small canoes and tap on the sides with a wooden mallet. This is to tell the dolphins that they are here and ready to cooperate with them to look for fish. The dolphins would appear and start looking for fish. Normally in pairs they would circle around and around the school of fish and form them into a tight ball. Along the way they signal the fishers which direction to follow with the waves from their flukes(tails). Once the fishes are in a tight formation they would slap down with their flukes and that s when the fishers would cast their nets.

This interactive fishing with the dolphins had been going on for decades. It is a technique handed down from generation to generation.The fishers would never harm the dolphins as they regard them as their own parents helping the children earn their living.

Now the government had recognized the threat posed to these wonderful creatures by such causes water pollution, increased riverine traffic and illegal dynamite fishing and had now demarcated a dolphin reserve, both to safeguard the dolphins and also to preserve the lifestyle of the dolphin fishers.
Photo: by author