River dolphins are the top predators in some of the world’s greatest river systems and they function as a key indicator species for the health of those rivers. In India and Pakistan, hundreds of endangered river dolphins die annually by getting accidentally entangled in fishing nets and drowning. This also damages the nets, resulting in lost fish catch and therefore lost income for fishers. With support from the Darwin Initiative, WWF trialled an innovative solution called ‘pingers’. A pinger is an acoustic device which is attached to nets and emits an electronic ‘ping’, making river dolphins keep a safe distance away and therefore avoid entanglement.
With this gift you’ll be supporting our work in the Amazon to implement pingers in collaboration with local fishing communities to reduce the number of dolphins being caught up in nets while benefitting fishermen with reduced net damage and increased fish catch.
See more about this project: https://www.wwf.org.uk/
