Unfortunately, some dolphin species are considered endangered due to historical and current-day factors that caused many dolphins to lose their lives. Dolphins are an amazing species of marine mammals which belong to the cetacean family.
The entire cetacean species comprises whales, dolphins, and porpoises. There are currently around 40 known dolphin species in existence today and around 80 known cetaceans in total.
Dolphins can be found swimming in all of the world’s major oceans. However, most species tend to prefer living in warmer climates around the equator due to their small size, and a thin layer of blubber makes it difficult to stay warm in frigid environments.
Dolphins such as the killer whale are much larger in size and can be found swimming in colder regions of the world that smaller dolphins are likely to avoid.
When it comes to why some dolphins have become endangered, several factors have contributed to their current state. Unfortunately, each of these factors is the cause of human developments and interaction with the oceanic environment. While dolphins weren’t hunted nearly as much as their whale relatives were, a few species were hunted for meat and oil.
The bigger contribution to the endangerment of the dolphin species came from advances in technology which led to bigger boats, dams, water pollution, fishing nets, overhunting of fish, human-made developments, and global warming, among other human-created technology.
Endangered dolphins are an extremely concerning area for marine biologists and naturalists. If a dolphin becomes endangered, it increases the chances that the species may become extinct or unable to repopulate quickly enough to create a sustainable species.
Not only would their species become extinct, but it would also create an imbalance in the ocean’s ecosystem and food chain. By reducing the number of dolphins in the ocean, other species that the dolphins consume would begin to grow fast.
If those fish and other aquatic species begin to over-populate, they will consume other forms of food and prey rapidly. Eventually, they may end up eating their prey or to the point where their food would be unable to sustain itself, causing the overpopulated fish to starve from a lack of sufficient food.
While this may seem like a plausible concept, if marine mammals continue to become endangered and die off, this could have major consequences on the ocean’s ecosystem and ours as well.
Factors that led to the endangered dolphin species
- Illegal hunting
- Pollution
- Boats & Technology
- Global warming
- Fishing nets
- The construction of dams
- Closed up rivers
- Human-made platforms that isolated large river beds
- Increased numbers of captive dolphins
- A lack of food due to humans overhunting fish
Below you will find a list containing some of the endangered dolphins
- Amazon river dolphin
- Black sea bottlenose dolphin
- Chinese river dolphin
- Dusky dolphin
- Hector’s dolphin
- Ganges river dolphin
- Indus river dolphin
- Irrawaddy river dolphin
- Maui’s dolphin
- Mediterranean common dolphin
- Southern resident killer whale
- Tucuxi dolphin
- Yangtze dolphin