The Ganges river dolphin is listed as CITES-Appendix I and IUCN - Vulnerable. This animal is hunted both for its meat, which is eaten, and for its oil, which is used to fuel lamps. Other sources of threat include fishing nets, in which the river dolphin often becomes tangled when it migrates to tidal waters in the monsoon, and dams, which prevent the river dolphin from making its local migrations and separate potentially breeding populations of animals from one another.
The Ganges river dolphin is found in India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangledesh in the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Meghna, Karnaphuli, and Hoogli river systems. Plantanista gangetica probes the mud in river bottoms with its long snout in search of shrimp and fish.