Pink Dolphins, Pink Elephants and Pink Unicorns

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By Professor Victoria Sutton

August 05, 2024

Guest Opinion. Pink dolphins, pink elephants and pink unicorns sound like a list of fantasy creatures. Pink dolphins sound like a legendary beast with the mermaids, and they do have legendary status. But they are also real and in serious need of protection or they will be all but gone in 50 years.

The population of botos, river dolphins, found in the Brazilian Amazon, is declining due to fishing with gill nets and is predicted to fall by at least 95 per cent in less than 50 years.

The Whaling Commission is the main international organization to plan for conservation of the pink dolphin, which lives in the Amazon River system. The countries through which the Amazonian branches flow — Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia — work together to create conservation plans.

The Amazon River Basin is the largest in the world in terms of drainage volume, and the longest or second longest (the Nile River claims to be the longest) river in the world. The Amazon River makes up about 20% of the world’s liquid freshwater, and contains one in ten species of the world. Because it creates this natural environment unlike anything else on earth, it is not unexpected to see the appearance of unique species that are supported by this ecosystem, like the pink dolphin.

Unfortunately, the pressures of fishing, the treacherous risks of fishing nets and weirs, and even killing them for fish bait, has diminished their species to a dangerously low level. So much so that the pink dolphin (Inia geoffrensis) is on the IUCN endangered list and Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meaning there is no allowable exportation for science or commercial reasons. However it is not at the highest level of protection which is Appendix I (where only the bottle-nosed dolphin is listed, the only dolphin species on App. I).

Domestic Laws along the Amazon River

The Amazon River flows through six countries in South America: Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil and Bolivia for its contribution from rainfall to the river.

Bolivia passed a law in 2021 declaring their only freshwater mammal, the pink dolphin (Inia boliviensis), a national treasure. The same law bans fishing for dolphins and charges their military to protect the pink dolphins’ habitats from pollution.  The most serious pollutant threatening the pink dolphin is mercury being poured into the water from illegal gold mining operations.

Brazil has attempted to make illegal one of the biggest threats to their pink river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis), which is using them for bait to catch large Amazonian catfish, the piracatinga (Calophysus macropterus), in the Brazilian Amazon. Brazil issued a moratorium for piracatinga fishing in 2014 and has extended it every three years, since that time. Unfortunately, there is little enforcement.

In Colombia, social pressure and economic incentives seem to be working better than enforcement-dependent laws. In Colombia’s Amazon Basin, where former guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia control the territory, pink dolphins also live. It is said that if someone kills a pink dolphin, the FARC will have a word with them. It never happens again. From an economic incentive perspective, the pink dolphin from ecotourism for the local economy brings in US $20,000 compared to US $25 as a dead dolphin, according to the Omacha Foundation, a Colombian conservation organization.

Brazil, Columbia and Ecuador all had laws to protect the pink dolphin and finally Peru joined in 2017. Peru passes a law in 2017, the National Action Plan for the Conservation of River Dolphins and the Amazonian Manatee, which focuses on conservation of both its pink and grey river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis and Sotalia fluviatilis) and the Amazonian manatee (Trichechus inunguis).¹¹

Ecuador has recently held in their Constitutional Court that animals have rights and have the right to exist. That is the most powerful protection of any country in the Amazon Basin if it is used to protect the pink dolphin. Economic incentives for ecotourism in some communities have given strong protection to the pink dolphin.¹²

A pact intended to be signed by 14 countries began collecting signatures in Oct 2023, called the Global Declaration for River Dolphins that covers all river dolphins including the pink dolphin in an effort to coordinate conservation measures to save the river dolphins which have seen an overall decline of 73% since the 1980s.

Of Legend

These botos have a rich history of legend throughout their range in South America. They are said to transform into males after sundown and seduce young women. This tale takes various forms but often ends with a pregnancy of the seductees. It is such a pervasive part of the river culture that when a child is fatherless, the child is often called a “child of the boto”. 

The use of the pink dolphin as a symbol against violence against women — a circle around it with a slash through the circle. This could even raise hatred toward the dolphin and the group has since stopped using it.

I think we could all agree that the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and the serpent did not do anything positive for the reputation or community acceptance of the snake. The story of the botos luring fishing vessels and their crew to their deaths or luring women into lurid relationships likely does not win it much sympathy from other fishers or people who live by the Amazon River. Despite their protected status, fishery operators throw poisoned fish to the pink dolphins when they get too close to their fish catches.

They have even inspired recent AI-fraudsters on social media who hoped to gain a lot of clicks with their pink dolphin images claimed to be seen on the North Carolina coast this June. The fraudster should have done a bit more research since pink dolphins are the only fresh water dolphins and would not be in the Atlantic Ocean.

Unique characteristics

Other than being pink and living in freshwater, not salt water, the pink dolphin has some other unique features. One, it has adapted to maneuvering in shallow waters and deeper waters, that occur with the Amazon River’s two rhythms: the dry season when the water is low; and the wet season when the water is high (up to 66 feet). It has greater flexibility for changing direction and swimming rapidly through a flooded forest due to its looser vertebrae. This flexibility is essential in very shallow water because the pink river dolphin, unlike the marine dolphin, is able to turn each flipper to a different side as it navigates the shallows.

Of the culture

The pink dolphin is embedded in the culture of the indigenous people, the river people and all people in countries that are part of the Amazon River basin. Indigenous peoples across Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela consider the pink dolphin to be a divine creature.¹⁸

The Saire’ Festival in Alter do Chao, Para’ state, originated in the 17th Century as a religious festival introduced by the Jesuits, and the pink dolphin is a major cultural icon in the festivities that are held near the bank of the Amazon River. Villages take specific roles in the dramas that play out the legends of the botos.

The pink dolphin is a mystical and ecologically important animal, with a legal right to exist in some of its habitat, but also a part of the history and culture of the people of the Amazon Basin which is a significant part of the continent of South America. The disappearance of the pink dolphin would mean the disappearance of the connection of the people with their environment both historically and culturally and could be politically and socially disruptive in unforeseen ways. For all these reasons, we should consider it a global security issue.

It is magical

This story sums up our fascination with the pink dolphin. A research scientist, Vera Maria Ferreira da Silva, first came to the Amazon region to study fish, but says the Amazon pink dolphin cast a spell on her, changing her career path.

It’s a beautiful animal. As soon as I arrived in the Amazon, I was captivated by it, seeing the contrast of its pink body in the brown waters of the river. When you are looking for it, it sometimes appears all of a sudden, and it’s always that: ‘Oh look, it’s the boto!’ To this day it’s like that, even after 40 years working with these animals.

Silva is today a leading expert on Brazil’s river mammals.

To read more articles by Professor Sutton go to:  https://profvictoria.substack.com/ 

Professor Victoria Sutton (Lumbee) is a law professor on the faculty of Texas Tech University. In 2005, Sutton became a founding member of the National Congress of American Indians, Policy Advisory Board to the NCAI Policy Center, positioning the Native American community to act and lead on policy issues affecting Indigenous communities in the United States.