As female river dolphins bear only a single calf every four to five years on average, population numbers can be slow and difficult to recover.
Also known as the pink river dolphin, the animal lives only in freshwater and is found throughout the Amazon river basins in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela. Though the dolphin is protected in Brazil, its population continues to halve every decade and is now a IUCN-listed endangered species as poachers persistently hunt them for their fatty blubber to be used as bait to catch a carnivorous catfish. In other parts of the Amazon, the dolphin faces increasing threats of water pollution as well as dam installations creating habitat fragmentation. As female river dolphins bear only a single calf every four to five years on average, population numbers can be slow and difficult to recover.