Puerto Narino, Colombia (AP)-a pink flash breaks the muddy surface of the Amazon as a scientist and veterinarians, who patiently a network of river in the warm current. With every passport, they draw it firmer and a spray made of silver fish glitter under the hard sun while escaping the network.
When the team hits a dolphin in a boat, it twists as water flows from the pink pages and the crew quickly drives it into the sandy river bank, where adrenaline-charged researchers raise it onto a mat. You have 15 minutes – the border for how long a dolphin can be safe from the water – to do your work.
Fernando Trujillo, a marine biologist who leads the efforts, kneels next to the animal’s head and protects his eye with a small cloth so that it cannot see what happens. He gently puts his hand on the animal and speaks in low tones.
“You have never felt the palm. We try to calm them down,” said Trujillo with a pink delphin -bandana. “Taking a dolphin out of the water is a kind of kidnapping.”
One person counts the breath of the dolphin. Another holds his skin with a sponge, while the others carry out several medical tests to show how much mercury leads through the most graceful predators of the Amazon.
The Merkur threat spreads out in the Amazon food chain
Trujillo heads the Omacha Foundation, a nature conservation group that focuses on aquatic wildlife and river ecosystems, and leads health river dolphins. It is a careful operation with experienced fishermen, veterinarians and locals who are planned for months and take place a few times a year.
“We take blood and tissue samples to evaluate mercury,” said Trujillo of the associated press from the Colombian city in Puerto Narino. “Basically, we use dolphins as a guard for the health of the river.”
The mercury pollution mainly comes from the illegal gold mining – a growing industry in the Amazon basin – and forest extinguishing, which washes mercury, which of course occurs in waterways in the ground.
The miners use mercury to separate gold from the sediment and then throw the sludge back into rivers, where it occurs from humans and dolphins. Rising global gold prices have heated up a mining boom and the mercury pollution in remote waterways has increased.
Mercury can cause the brain, the kidneys, the lungs and the immune system and cause mood swings, memory loss and muscle weakness in humans, according to the World Health Organization and the US environmental protection authority. Pregnant women and small children are most at risk because the prenatal exposure is associated with developmental delays and reduced cognitive functions.
“The maximum living being should have 1 milligram per kilogram,” said Trujillo. “Here we see 20 to 30 -times as much.”
In recent years, his team has found 16 to 18 milligrams per kilogram of mercury in dolphins, which can suffer the same neurological damage, organ damage and other problems like humans. In the Colombia’s Orinoco River, the values have reached up to 42 in some dolphins. The values say that scientists say that they have been recorded the most extreme in the most extreme.
Trujillo said it was difficult to prove that the toxin dolphins killed directly. Further studies are underway, he added and found that “every mammal with a large amount of mercury will die”.
When Trujillo and his team tested their own blood three years ago, his results showed more than 36 times the safe border 36.4 milligrams per kilogram, a level that he has attributed for decades in mercury areas and a diet that works hard in fish. With medical support, his values have dropped to around 7 milligrams.
“Mercury is an invisible enemy until it is built up to a sufficient amount, then he influences the central nervous system,” Trujillo told AP after he managed to capture and test four pink dolphins. “We already see evidence of this in indigenous communities.”
A number of scientific studies and reports – including the work of the international pollutant elimination network and academic researchers – have a high exposure to mercury among indigenous peoples all over Amazon, including in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Suriname and Bolivia. The hair samples showed average above the one that is a safe threshold of 1 part per million, with a Colombian community registered more than 22 milligrams per kilogram.
The dolphin populations in this part of the Amazon have fallen, whereby the monitoring of Trujillo had a decline in the pink dolphins by 52% and a decline in Gray River’s dolphin in recent decades. The International Union for Nature Conservation listed the 2018 Pink Delphin as endangered. Trujillo said exact figures for the Amazona are unknown, but his organization estimates 30,000 to 45,000 in the entire pool.
Pink River dolphins also stand by threats from overfishing, accidental entanglement in nets, boat traffic, habitat loss and longer drought.
Colombia says that it is illegal mining and mercury pollution. It banished Mercury in mining in 2018, ratified the Minamata Convention, which aimed to reduce the mercury in the environment, and submitted an action plan in 2024. The authorities cite joint operations with Brazil and the latest enforcement of enforcement. However, the guard dogs say that the efforts are uneven and illegal mining duration in a large part of the country.
Other Amazon nations say that they appear. Brazil has launched raids and contested the satellite internet used by illegal gold mining camps that use mercury to disturb logistics and the supply lines. Peru recently confiscated a record of 4 tons smuggled mercury. Ecuador, Suriname and Guyana submitted action plans to reduce Mercury in small gold mining.
A sensitive operation for safe testing of dolphins
The Delphin test surgery is based on José “Mariano” Rangel, a charismatic former fisherman from Venezuela. He leads the indictment when it is time to transport the animals – which weigh up to 160 kilograms (approx. 353 pounds) – into the small boats. It is a moment that can end up on the jaw with a stinging blow while the dolphins free themselves to free themselves.
“The most difficult part of the recordings is to include the dolphins,” said Rangel.
A portable ultrasound machine scans, heart and other important organs for diseases. The team checks for breathing problems, internal injuries and signs of reproduction, photograph the skin and scars of the animals, swab holes and genital openings for bacterial cultures and collect tissue for mercury tests. Microchips are implanted so that researchers can identify every animal and avoid double tests.
Omacha has an antimicrobial resistance – bacteria that are not killed by frequent medication – and breathing problems. They have also identified possible emerging diseases such as papillom virus that could represent risks for both dolphins and humans.
After a long morning to transport and test dolphins, the scientists return to a laboratory in Puerto Narino, which is covered with posters from dolphins and nautical bones as well as the bones and skulls of dolphins and other animals. They test some samples, prepare others to send them in larger facilities and end their day to repair networks and fill kits to do everything at dawn.
For Trujillo, every capture, scan and blood test is part of a larger struggle.
“We are a step away from being critically endangered and then extinct,” said Trujillo.
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