Conservation
In the late 1970’s an estimated 400,000 pantropical spotted dolphins were killed due to accidents with fishing boats or getting tangled up in nets that were meant for tuna. Efforts were put into place by the various governments to help reduce the problem. By 1999 only 5,000 dolphins annually were being harmed under the same types of circumstances. Since the early 1980’s there has been a significant amount of conservation efforts out there for this species of dolphin.
They were becoming vulnerable due to the many commercial fishermen out there after tuna. With changes to the types of nets used for that process there is less of a risk to these dolphins than a couple of decades ago. It may surprise you though to find that more than three million of them exist. However, researchers felt that at the rate they were being killed 20 years ago that they would have no chance of survival. Today they thrive as the second highest population of dolphins with only the bottlenose having more of them. Still, there were more than seven million of them just 50 years ago so you can see how much their numbers have dropped over the course of time.
Human interaction
The research materials from a couple of years ago though so that human interaction is still creating problems for the pantropical spotted dolphin. Even though they are using safer nets, many of the offspring get separated from their mothers due to the different nets in place. They aren’t able to survive on their own so there is a high mortality rate.
(source:google/http://www.dolphins-world.com/)
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