Following the video’s circulation, the Forest Department registered an FIR against the accused, while police launched raids to locate him. A fisherman in Bihar’s Saharsa has landed in legal trouble after allegedly catching a dolphin in the Kosi River. The incident came to light after a video showing the fisherman with the dolphin went viral on social media.
The youth then recorded the interaction on his mobile phone, including footage of the fisherman and the dolphin. As word spread, several villagers gathered at the spot. The fisherman eventually took the dolphin home, where family members reportedly posed for photographs with it. The Ganges River Dolphin is India’s national aquatic animal, found in the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna river system across India, Nepal and Bangladesh. It is functionally blind and navigates and hunts using echolocation. It can only live in freshwater. Listed as Endangered by IUCN and protected under Schedule I of India’s Wildlife Protection Act, it is a key indicator of river health.
Once widespread, its population has sharply declined to around 3,500-4,000 due to pollution, dam construction, habitat loss, and accidental entanglement in fishing nets.
Despite the warning, the fisherman allegedly told the man that he intended to kill the dolphin and extract its oil.
