Touch Seang Tana likes to amuse friends at his house by having the Mekong dolphins he has trained do tricks in his aquarium. “They find it very entertaining,” said the fisheries specialist at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
He said he hopes that, in the next five years, what he does now for his guests will be implemented on a larger scale in Kratie province for tourists. He and Kratie Governor Loy Sophat share a vision to build hotels, restaurants, bamboo boats and dolphin observing areas for wildlife enthusiasts.
But right now, the focus is on studying the dolphins, whose qualities include an ability to hold their breaths for twelve minutes. On Saturday, the Ministry of Agriculture opened a new dolphin research facility in Kratie that will house facilities and international marine biologists to study the mammals.
The research project will eventually include a training center for students from Japan and Singapore to study the dolphins in their natural habitat.
The center’s opening ceremonies were led by the Minister of Cabinet Sok An, who spoke of the high priority placed on dolphin conservation.
The dolphins are under threat from logging, pollution, flooding and fishing, according to the World Wildlife Fund. In the early 1970s, there were more than 1,000 dolphins in the Mekong, but today the population may be as low as 60, according to fisheries officials.
A Japanese organization, HAB 21, gave more than $20,000 for the construction of the center. If things go as planned, the center should be complete early next year, said Touch Seang Tana.
In addition to building the center, the province has been educating its population about the endangered status of the dolphins. Handbags and T-shirts decorated with dolphins were given out at a 1997 dolphin conservation workshop to drive the point home. “They were very good quality, so residents hung them up on their walls,” Touch Seang Tana said. “Everyone knows how important the dolphins are now.”
