The Dolphins of the Mekong
A folktale from Kratie Province
A folktale about the river dolphins of the Mekong in Kratie Province and the fishermen who lived beside them.
The Mekong River flows down from the distant mountains of Tibet. Since long ago, many river dolphins have lived in its waters. Dolphins look a lot like fish, but like dogs and cats they are mammals, and they are very clever creatures.
Dolphins love to eat fish too. Yet they never fought over food with the Khmer fishermen, and dolphins and people lived together as friends. In many places there are still stories of dolphins saving children who had fallen into the river and were about to drown.
But the sound of war drew near even to the peaceful riverside villages. The fishermen and children who had been their friends suddenly stopped coming to the river. From far away, the dolphins began to watch tanks and helicopters they had never seen before.
One day, for the first time in a long while, a boat carrying people came onto the river. Thinking their friends had come back, the dolphins happily swam up to it. But the people on the boat were not fishermen. They threw something small that they held in their hands into the river.
"BOOM!" With a huge explosion, a white column of water shot up from the river. It was dynamite fishing. Fish stunned by the blast floated to the surface one after another, and the people gleefully gathered them up.
The dynamite fishing went on again and again, and the fish in the river quickly dwindled. The hungry dolphins grew so frightened that they fled at the mere sound of an engine. In time they moved their home deep into the river, far from human eyes, to the area around Kampi Village in Kratie, where the river winds among many sandbanks.
They say the dolphins are still there today, watching people from a distance. Will the day ever come when they can live together with people as friends again?
The end.
About this story
The Irrawaddy dolphins that live in the Mekong have declined rapidly in recent years, and there are fears they may die out. Today they are found only along a stretch of about 190 km from southern Laos to Kratie Province in Cambodia.
According to WWF surveys, the population, estimated at about 200 in 1997, had fallen to 92 by 2017. Dynamite fishing like that in the story is now banned by law, but rising demand for food as the population grows, and changes in water levels and quality caused by dam construction, are thought to still be affecting the number of dolphins.