A deep dive into the anthropogenic threats facing endangered freshwater dolphins in the highly managed Indus River of Pakistan

This PhD project is designed to answer questions that are of vital importance for conservation and management of freshwater dolphins in the Indus River. It is applied research and an interdisciplinary project that has the overarching goal to understand and quantify the spatial variation in some of the most important anthropogenic threats to the Indus River and the Indus River dolphin. The information generated will be used by local stakeholders, including the government, to address those threats, and identify locations for conservation translocations. Specific objectives that will be addressed include the impact of plastics, understanding noise pollution and evaluation of variations in available prey documenting how each of these threats vary across space and time.