India will soon launch the first unified survey to enumerate the endangered Ganga dolphins, the National Aquatic Animal, whose count is an important indicator of the health of the holy river.
The survey would be simultaneously conducted in Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal from October this year and results are likely to be available by February next year, sources at the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), functioning under the Union Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga rejuvenation said.
According to NMCG sources, it would be the country’s first national-level survey for the head count the Ganga dolphin (Platanista Gangetica) in the river using the direct count method of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
“Though some States have independently surveyed Ganga dolphins in the past, they followed different methodologies for their enumeration. Henceforth, we have decided to conduct a collective survey using a standard method to know the population and distribution range of the species,” an NMCG official told PTI.