Context:
- Dredging, freight transport, pollution, and a lack of management plan leaves India’s only dolphin sanctuary, Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary (VGDS) in Bihar’s Bhagalpur district, under threat.
- The number of dolphins in the sanctuary had declined to 154 from 207 in 2015.
- Dredging activity has increased manifold in recent years because the current Indian government has declared the stretch of the Ganga from Varanasi to Haldia in West Bengal National Waterway- 1.
- The experts involved in the survey blamed increasing pollution, human interference, siltation and decreasing water flow and water level in the river.
About Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary
- Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary (VGDS), a 65km stretch of the Ganga River between Sultanganj and Kahalgaon towns in Bhagalpur, Bihar, India.
- It is a protected area established in 1991 to protect the endangered Gangetic river dolphin.
About Gangetic Dolphin
- Endangered under IUCN
- Endemic to India’s Ganga- Brahmaputra belt
- Found in freshwater habitat