Summary of threats for river dolphins in South America: Past, present and future.

22) TRUJILLO, T., E.A. CRESPO, P. VAN DAMME, S. USMA, D. MORALES-BETANCOURT, A. WOOD & M. PORTOCARRERO.

The Action Plan for South American River Dolphins 2010 – 2020.

Unión Gráfica Ltda

Lugar: Bogota; Año: 2010; p. 145 - 158

In the early eighties a great concern about the future of river dolphins led the Cetacean Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission to concentrate their efforts on strategy to deal with those concerns. In 1986, the Workshop on Biology and Conservation of the Platanistoid Dolphins was the first step to asses issues related with threats and recommendations for the survival of river dolphins in the entire world (Perrin et al. 1989). This meeting encouraged some researchers in South America to start long term river projects related to river dolphins, especially in Brazil and Colombia. For almost ten years some important contributions about the distribution, biology and identification of threats were made. During these years some documents were published. These documents were and are currently the lead information to all researchers involved in research, conservation and educational projects. These documents are the 1994-1998 Action Plan for the Conservation of Cetaceans (Reeves & Leatherwood 1994), International Whaling Commission Scientific Committee Report 2000, and the 2002-2010 Conservation Action Plan the World’s Cetaceans (Reeves et al. 2003). At the 1986 Workshop, the Amazon River Dolphin or Boto (Inia geoffrensis) was considered less common than the Tucuxi (Sotalia fluviatilis), the other freshwater South American dolphin species, and therefore Inia geoffrensis was the only one included in the Report of the Workshop. Both species were included in reports and action plans thereafter, in which many direct and indirect threats to the species were determined and recommendations on these issues were made. Both threats and recommendations have changed over time according to reality and the new information on dolphins and their areas of distribution. Issues like the lack of information regarding ecology, behavior, abundance and density estimations, non-standardized data, incidental and direct mortality due to fisheries and the review of taxonomic classification for the genus Inia, are some of the current topics written down in Action Plans and Conservation Strategies, and in accordance to this the same recommendations are formulated. Today almost 20 year later, those efforts and recommendations are yielding results and the commitment of researchers and conservationist organizations are getting stronger each day. Summarized in this chapter are the main threats to river dolpins in South America and the end of the document a chart is included showing the different Action Plans and Conservation Strategies and the threats to each species and recommendations regarding each issue.