通过卫星拯救濒危的海豚

Scientists say they are in a race against time. The endangered Franciscana Dolphin population off the Argentine coast is shrinking. The dolphins are dying in fishing nets and scientists are trying to reverse that trend.

Twenty second. Twenty second.

We basically want to have this done by yesterday. That's a basic need. We know we need to get this done immediately. 

Doctor Martin Mandez is one of the team leaders. He and his colleagues are combining three lines of research. They are catching the dolphins and implanting devices for satellite tracking. They are testing environmental conditions such as the food supply and water temperature to better understand why the dolphins choose to live there. And back in New York, Mandez is studying the dolphins on a molecular level by sequencing their DNA to better classify family groups.

We think that we basically completed a very important piece of research. We combined each of their new data, environmental data for addressing population structure. That's out already… we’re ready to actually incorporate that into a management fund to … for us in Argentina, with Argentina.

The team hopes the combined data will paint a very clear picture of the rare dolphin's habitat, allowing scientists like Pablo Bordino to make informed recommendations for their protection. Bordino says the research is born some surprising discoveries.

We are finding that these animals are very, are residents, you know, these animals are, they don't like to move a lot so that results support the genetic results too. So I think that is amazing, because nobody knew that before. You know, it was a surprise for us too.

And that could be important, according to Mandez, gill net fishing in certain areas has the potential to wipe out entire families of Franciscana Dolphins.

Basically the end-goal is to, be able to preserve such kind of dolphins, as a viable species. This means having viable populations to distribute in space. So we basically doing everything we can, combining all the evidence we can, different tools, and different lines of research to provide the best understanding we can to then put together a sense of conservation plan. So we are basically at this point we trust throwing science at its best to address this issue.

Mandez says in recent years, local fishing and the government in Argentina had been helpful to their mission. Ultimately though, he believes the fate of the Franciscana dolphin may come down to science.

Ben Gruber, Reuters.