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Education & research bring Rio’s dolphins back from the brink of extinction

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Just 60 kilometers (37 miles) outside the city of Rio de Janeiro, dozens of Guiana dolphins swim cautiously past the motorboat, cutting through the water’s surface to breathe. Leonardo Flach stands at the bow taking photos to later identify individuals based on their dorsal fins. With a clear sea and surrounding forest-covered mountains, the landscape of Sepetiba Bay is scenic, yet the water is anything but pristine. The Guiana dolphin is “the most common dolphin species in Brazil, but at the same time, one of the most endangered,” Flach, a biologist and co-founder of the nonprofit Instituto Boto Cinza (Guiana Dolphin Institute), told Mongabay. He’s studied Guiana dolphins in Sepetiba Bay since the 1990s to understand the dangers they face and to find solutions to protect them. One of the main threats to these dolphins is chemical pollution in the sea. Flach was part of a recently published that found high toxin concentrations in Guiana dolphins (Sotalia guianensis) over a 12-year period in Sepetiba Bay, the result of dredging, industrial pollution and raw sewage. Up to 80% of sewage from the region is untreated and pumped into the bay, Flach said, contaminating the sea with pathogens and pharmaceuticals that are passed through urination. “[Rio de Janeiro’s] Guiana dolphins, which live in semi-enclosed bays, are among the most contaminated in the world,” Mariana Alonso, a professor at the Biophysics Institute at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, who was not involved in this study, told…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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