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Police in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state have arrested three people believed to have been involved in the murder of the endangered Ganges dolphin after video of the sinister incident was revealed went viral on social media, according to local police.
Investigating agent Akhilesh Pratap Singh told CNN that the carcass of the dolphin was found on the Sharda Canal embankment in the Pratapgarh district on December 31.
On Thursday, three people believed to have been seen in the video were arrested, police said. Nine people also seen in the video are currently still at large, according to Singh.
The video shows a group of men with sticks and an ax clubbing the dolphin to death. Some laughed as the dolphin’s nearly lifeless body was pulled by its fin into the shallow water.
Forester Varun Singh, who was part of the original investigation, told CNN that the dolphin was an adult Ganges dolphin.
According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) India, the Ganges dolphin was “once present in tens of thousands”, but has now “catastrophically declined” to a population of less than 1,800 over the past century.
“Living in one of the most densely populated regions in the world, the Ganges dolphin faces threats from agricultural and industrial pollution and other human activities such as dams, irrigation projects and fishing. “, According to WWF, which asserts that development” divides and isolates populations.
“The rare freshwater dolphin is essentially blind and is known locally as ‘susu,’ a reference to the noise it makes when it breathes, according to WWF.
When hunting, the dolphin emits ultrasonic sounds that bounce off fish and other prey that allow them to visualize an image in their mind.
According to WWF, female Ganges dolphins give birth every two to three years to a single calf.
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