GHOTKI: A group of people from Golo Khan village killed a rare Indus River dolphin near Daharki town of Ghotki district on Friday. The villagers told local journalists that they mistook the endangered dolphin for a "dangerous" animal and killed it using axes and sticks.

Wildlife department officials told media representatives that a team had been dispatched to the site from Sukkur to take possession of the blind dolphin.

Speaking to Dawn, Nasir Panhwar, a wildlife expert and environmentalist, deplored that as the endangered animal was being killed everywhere, concerned authorities were not taking any measures to counter these incidents. He said only 1,000 to 1,100 such dolphins now remain in Sindh.

Nadeem Mirbahar, a representative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), told Dawn that increasing pollution posed a grave threat to the rare dolphin found only in the Indus River. He added that the animal was facing extinction due to overfishing and dumping of toxic waste in the river.

Experts believe that the fast disappearance of this top predator from marine waters would have a direct bearing on our fragile ecosystem.

The wildlife department and WWF spend a huge amount annually on preservation of the endangered specie but the dolphins continued to die as government functionaries fail to act.