Freshwater dolphins including the Amazon pink river dolphin and Ganges river dolphin face serious threats from river degradation, fishing, and direct hunting.
Freshwater dolphins in degraded river habitats experience reduced prey availability, chemical contamination, and physical barriers to movement. Entanglement in fishing nets causes drowning deaths. Mercury from gold mining bioaccumulates in dolphins through their fish prey, causing neurological damage. The extinction of the Yangtze river dolphin represents the most recent documented cetacean extinction and warns of what awaits other freshwater dolphin species without urgent action.