What a dolphin’s death in Kerala reveals about India’s marine plastic pollution

Around noon on July 4, 2026, local residents found an Indian Ocean humpback dolphin ( Sousa plumbea ) and an Indo-Pacific finless porpoise ( Neophocaena phocaenoides ) dead at separate locations on the Kozhikode beach in Kerala. Alerted by the public, officials recovered the carcasses for a post-mortem examination. The necropsy of the roughly 200-kg dolphin, an endangered species on the IUCN Red List, revealed something alarming. Its stomach was empty, while most of its organs were functioning normally, but a nearly 2 kg plastic fishing net was found tightly lodged in its oesophagus, disrupting normal feeding and leading to its death.