In photos: How Cambodia is trying to protect the Mekong’s last dolphins

The Irrawaddy dolphin is native to both salt and freshwater habitats from eastern India to Borneo.

One after another, dorsal fins crest above the Mekong river waters. Under the piercing noon sun of February, three small boats turn off their motors to bob on the water. Around a half-dozen Cambodian tourists wait quietly aboard each vessel, squinting and pointing where they see a dolphin rise above the reflected sunlight.

This 60m-deep stretch of the river in Cambodia’s Kratie province, named after the Kampi rapids just upstream, is one of three deep pools that are home to the Mekong’s last surviving population of Irrawaddy dolphins. Fewer than 90 adults still live in the river, their existence threatened by fishing nets, dams and other human developments.

Sor Chamroeun, a river patroller employed by the Cambodian government, recalls that when he was young, dolphins ruled this stretch of the river. “In the 1970s, after the Khmer Rouge, there were thousands of dolphins,” he said.

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