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More than 80% of Indian Ocean dolphins may have been killed by commercial fishing, study finds
Dolphin numbers in the Indian Ocean may have dropped by more than 80% in recent decades, with an estimated 4m small cetaceans caught as “by-catch” in commercial tuna fishing nets since 1950, according to a study.
As many as 100,000 cetaceans – mainly dolphins – were caught in commercial gill nets as by-catch in 2006, with current annual numbers at about 80,000.
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The study, led by Dr Charles Anderson of the Manta Marine organisation in the Maldives, estimated dolphin numbers had likely dropped to only 13% of their levels before 1980, when large-scale fishing efforts for tuna in the Indian Ocean began.
