Uzma Khan

Uzma Khan

Conservation Biologist: Guardian of the Indus River Dolphin

Biologist

Conservationist

Indus River Dolphin

Portrait of Dr. Uzma Khan.

“I felt a sense of responsibility for the impact of my species on another.” (Khan, 2018)

Where the River First Spoke

The sound came before the sight. A sharp exhale, soft and sudden, echoed off the surface of the canal — bhush bhush. For a moment, time stilled. It was 1988, and a young Uzma Khan stood on the banks of the Indus River, just beginning her work in wildlife education. She had only ever seen photographs of the elusive Bhulan, the Indus River dolphin (Platanista gangetica minor), and even those were scarce. What she glimpsed that day, however briefly, would alter the course of her life.

“It was love at first sight,” she later recalled. “It’s a beautiful creature, you know — so unique” (Khan, 2023b)

Uzma Khan conducting field research on the Indus River dolphin.

Uzma Khan witnessing the Indus River dolphin for the very first time.

That early encounter sparked a lifelong devotion. Over the next decade, Uzma deepened her work in animal welfare and public education. When she joined WWF-Pakistan in the late 1990s as a zoo education officer, she became the first woman in that role at Lahore Zoo. She spent her days carrying stuffed animals into classrooms and designing programs that could awaken wonder in children. It was valuable work, but she longed to move beyond the boundaries of walls and textbooks. The dolphin’s breath — that fleeting bhush bhush — had already planted something in her, a restlessness that called her toward the river itself.

In 1998, her mentor Richard Garstang gave her the chance. He invited Uzma to join her first dolphin rescue, an experience that left a profound mark on her career. The dolphin she saw then was not freely navigating the Indus but trapped in one of the sprawling irrigation canals, part of the world’s largest irrigation system. Surfacing every few minutes, its intervals grew longer as the canal filled with the noise of approaching boats. The animal, aware and disoriented, was at risk of dying if not swiftly returned to the river.

She wasn’t just observing an animal; she was witnessing an evolutionary marvel dislocated by human infrastructure.

“I felt a sense of responsibility,” she later reflected. “The impact of my species on another became very real” (Khan, 2018)

That moment confirmed what her first glimpse a decade earlier had only suggested: the dolphin’s breath was a summons. It called her beyond the zoo, beyond education, into the uncertain waters of field conservation. From that point on, Uzma Khan would dedicate her life to the Bhulan, and to understanding the fragile balance between life, water, and human action.

Artistic storyboard illustration of Uzma Khan encountering an Indus River dolphin trapped in an irrigation canal, surfacing with longer intervals as the sound of approaching boats filled the water.

Bhush Bhush

The Indus River serves as the lifeblood of Pakistan, supporting more than 240 million people. Yet it is a fractured system, segmented by a labyrinth of dams and barrages. Within its limited and increasingly polluted waters lives a species whose survival depends not only on scientific data but on attuning to breath, to sound, and to silence.

The Indus River dolphin, known locally as Bhulan, is blind, surfacing for mere seconds to breathe through a blowhole, exhaling that signature puff — bhush bhush. But in the decades since Uzma Khan’s first encounter, she has come to understand that these creatures are more than evolutionary curiosities or conservation mascots. They are sentinels of the river’s health. If the dolphins are disappearing, so too is the river’s ability to sustain life — human or otherwise.

Artistic storyboard illustration of citizens in Pakistan spotting the Bhulan — the blind Indus River dolphin — briefly surfacing to breathe through its blowhole with the signature puff, bhush bhush.

Driven by this conviction, Uzma has spent more than two decades in the field, often under the blistering Pakistan sun, recording sightings, coordinating rescues, and designing ambitious conservation initiatives that bridge science, community, and policy. Her work was unusual not only because of its scope but because of who she was. In the early 2000s, it was rare for a Pakistani woman to stand at the helm of a survey boat, leading teams through the Indus, or to direct the delicate, dangerous work of pulling a half-ton mammal from an irrigation canal. Credibility was not assumed; she had to claim it, again and again, through persistence and results.

Her philosophy of conservation set her apart as much as her gender. Where some scientists treated dolphins as numbers in a dataset, Uzma insisted that compassion and emotion were as vital as population counts and satellite tags.

“They are smart. They respond to everything around them. They’re aware of us,” she said. “And when they’re rescued, they don’t thrash aimlessly. You feel their will to survive” (Khan, 2023b)

That conviction shaped her methods. She introduced new technologies, like acoustic “pingers” to reduce dolphin entanglements in fishing nets, while also building trust with the fisherfolk whose livelihoods depended on the river. Over time, these communities became allies. Fishermen were trained as “eyes and ears,” reporting sightings and joining rescues. “They are our citizen scientists,” Uzma said, crediting local knowledge as essential to dolphin survival.

The results speak for themselves. Since 2001, the population of Indus River dolphins has grown from roughly 1,200 to nearly 2,000 — a rare success story in a world facing accelerating biodiversity loss. This recovery did not happen by accident. It is the outcome of hundreds of careful rescues, innovative partnerships with the Sindh Wildlife Department, and Uzma’s refusal to accept that compassion and rigour are incompatible.

Her work reached global audiences when BBC’s Planet Earth III documented a dramatic rescue, narrated by Sir David Attenborough. A stranded female dolphin, 150 miles from the main river, could not return on her own.

“Her life [the dolphin] now depends on these rescuers,” Attenborough intoned. And it did. It also depended on Uzma’s vision, one rooted not just in science but in care. “If the dolphin stays stuck in the canal, she’ll die,” Uzma said, as her team worked against the clock. “It’s a risk, but one we have to take." The rescue succeeded. The dolphin lived. The satellite tag transmitted data. It was, as Uzma said through tears, “the happiest moment of my life” (Easton, 2023; Khan, 2023c)

But for her, success is always tempered with realism. The Indus dolphin remains endangered, its habitat fragmented, its survival imperiled by gillnets, pollution, and climate change.

“This work requires compassion and emotion,” she often says. “Science alone is not enough” (Khan, 2023b)

Through the breath of the dolphin — bhush bhush — Uzma Khan has listened. And in return, she has built one of the most innovative freshwater conservation movements in the world, rooted not in control but in care. The sound that changed everything now echoes through every rescue, every survey, every community meeting. 

It is the sound of survival. 

And it is far from over.

Against the Current

For Uzma Khan, saving the Indus River dolphin was never just about the dolphin. It was also about carving space in conservation, in science, and in society where women could lead with both empathy and authority. In Pakistan’s male-dominated field of wildlife biology, Uzma’s presence in boats, labs, and government meetings was once an anomaly. When she joined WWF in the late 1990s, she became the first woman to hold a full-time education position at Lahore Zoo. That role opened doors, but it did not erase barriers.

Credibility was never assumed. She had to prove herself again and again, whether leading dolphin rescues in remote canals or presenting at international biodiversity conferences. In one meeting with a politician, despite Richard Garstang introducing her as WWF’s expert on zoo management, the man directed every question to him instead.

Later, Garstang apologised on his behalf, telling her gently, “People tend to undermine professional women, it will take time for that to change.” (WWF-Pakistan, n.d.)

Garstang would become one of Uzma’s most important mentors, remembered with warmth and gratitude. He carried bags of stuffed animals to make conservation playful for children, introduced her to her first dolphin rescue, and invested deeply in training young professionals.

“Richard was a dynamic, funny, technically sound and extraordinary individual, who did something for everyone. Like a true leader he invested a lot of energy in developing young professionals. He made a huge impact on my career,” she later recalled. (WWF-Pakistan, n.d.)

Yet the professional culture around her did not shift overnight. She often entered meetings to skepticism or silence, her authority questioned before she had spoken. Rather than grow cynical, she reshaped the field from within. She infused science with compassion, a way of working some dismissed as “too emotional” but which proved essential for rescuing a species that survives only through human care. She mentored young women, offering them the same encouragement she had received from Garstang. And she led with quiet persistence, transforming moments of erasure into acts of resistance.

Her memories of Garstang still make her smile. She remembered his teasing that she walked “like a kangaroo” because she bounced when she moved. To her, that lightness became symbolic: an ability to move forward where no clear path existed, to carry resilience with levity, and to leap when walking was not enough.

Shadows and Science

Conserving a species that you cannot see is a challenge most biologists never face. For Dr. Uzma Khan, this invisibility was not a deterrent but a mystery she felt compelled to solve. The Indus River dolphin, blind and reclusive, surfaces for only a breath every minute or two, slipping back into water so turbid that nothing is visible a foot below the surface.

“The water is so murky that you cannot see even a foot below,” Uzma explained. “We rely entirely on sound. Just like the dolphin does.” (Khan, 2023, as cited in WWF-Pakistan, 2023)

Artistic storyboard illustration of Uzma Khan and her team navigating the river in search of the elusive dolphin, relying on sound alone in the murky waters where visibility is less than a foot — just as the dolphin itself does.

The work was, and remains, exhausting. Surveys meant weeks along the riverbanks, camping in remote heat, standing for hours on makeshift platforms to record the briefest surface exhales, skin burned and eyes straining against glare. The dolphins offered only fragments: a ripple, a breath, a fleeting arc of a dorsal fin. Yet from those fragments, Uzma built a picture of their population and distribution more precise than ever before.

“Because of this work,” she reflected, “we know the population numbers with precision. We know where they are and how they move. And that matters.” (Khan, 2023, January 15)

But sound and sight alone could not reveal enough. For more than a decade, Uzma pursued what many thought impossible: safely tagging river dolphins with satellite transmitters. Tagging a dolphin is fraught with risk, since stress can be fatal, and existing devices were not designed for such elusive animals. She spent years refining designs and advocating for the project, until in 2022, three dolphins rescued from irrigation canals became the first in Asia to be fitted with satellite tags.

The results were stunning. One dolphin swam 46 kilometres upstream from its release site, challenging assumptions about how far the species could travel. Another ventured into side channels previously thought inaccessible. For the first time, the invisible lives of the Bhulan were illuminated: their routes, their rhythms, their resilience.

This new knowledge was more than academic. It was survival. By revealing where dolphins travelled, where they became stranded, and how they navigated the labyrinth of canals and barrages, Uzma armed conservationists and local authorities with tools to intervene before it was too late. Science in the dark had made the shadows in the river visible.

Empathy as Method

For Uzma Khan, the Bhulan was never just an object of study. It was a creature of profound meaning, a mirror of both fragility and resilience in a wounded world. In BBC’s Planet Earth III  documentary, Uzma claims to remember every single encounter vividly. Each rescue, a new story, filled with tension, with emotion, and with the quiet breath of hope.

One rescue stood out. A dolphin, disoriented and trapped in a shallow canal, tossed and turned in distress as the team loaded it onto a stretcher. It thrashed against the cloth restraints, agitated and afraid. Acting on instinct, Uzma placed her hand gently on its slick, grey skin and began to stroke it. The dolphin calmed.

“It was not scientific,” she later admitted, “but it was human. It felt right." Moments like this changed her. They blurred the line between scientist and advocate. “This may sound unscientific and overly emotional to some, but I believe that conservation requires both emotion and compassion.” For Uzma, empathy was not a weakness but a methodology, one that gave her science deeper reach. (Khan, 2023, November 10)

Her compassion did not come at the expense of rigour. She helped introduce “pingers,” small acoustic devices that deter dolphins from swimming into fishing nets, one of the leading causes of mortality. Field trials showed the pingers could significantly reduce entanglements while still supporting sustainable fishing practices in Sindh and Punjab (provinces of Pakistan). It was a solution rooted in both science and care, designed to protect the dolphin without undermining human livelihoods.

Artistic storyboard illustration of Uzma Khan and her team rescuing a stranded dolphin from an irrigation canal, bringing it to land briefly before release. The team attaches satellite tags and introduces “pingers,” acoustic devices designed to keep dolphins safe from fishing nets — marking the first such effort in Asia.

The arc of her career reflects the same balance. Uzma’s journey from zoo education officer to Asia Coordinator for WWF’s River Dolphin Initiative is as remarkable as the dolphin’s own survival. Along the way, she authored the global river dolphin strategy and played a central role in securing the 2023 Global Declaration for River Dolphins, a landmark agreement signed by eleven range-state governments to coordinate cross-border protection.

Reflecting on her lifelong commitment, she once smiled and said, “Once a panda, always a panda. I will always be doing something to help animals. That’s how I’ve always been." (Muzaffar, 2020)

River’s Promise

Uzma Khan’s work with dolphins was never just about dolphins. It was about listening to the river, and hearing what it had been trying to say all along. The Indus River, once mighty and unbroken, is now fragmented by six major barrages. More than 80 percent of the dolphin’s historical range has been lost, leaving them confined to only 650 kilometres of river. To save the Bhulan is to safeguard the river’s future, and by extension, our own.

“The dolphin is an indicator species,” Uzma reminds us. “If the water is not safe for them, it is not safe for us.” (WWF-Pakistan, 2023)

To meet this challenge, Uzma built unlikely alliances. As mentioned above, she led efforts to partner with local fisherfolk, many of whom were once indifferent or even hostile to the dolphins. She also reclaimed the stories that had always belonged to the river. In Sindhi legend (Sindh being is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area), the Bhulan was once a woman cursed to breathe forever beneath the water. Her exhale, bhush bhush, is the dolphin’s blow as it surfaces. Uzma shares this tale often, not as myth but as metaphor. Where many see the Indus only as a resource to be extracted, she reminds us that for the dolphin, it is home, memory, and inheritance.

In this ancient mammal she sees both a warning and a promise. The dolphin survives, though barely, against sediment, pollution, entanglement, and isolation. Each successful rescue is a testament to possibility, while every loss is a reminder of what remains at risk. For Uzma, to listen to the dolphin’s breath is to listen to the river itself. Both are speaking. Both are asking us whether we are capable of change.

Artistic storyboard illustration of the Sindhi legend of the Bhulan — once a woman cursed to breathe forever beneath the water, her exhale echoing as the dolphin’s bhush bhush.

Laden Riverbeds

The Indus flows slowly now. Laden with sediment and sacrifice, it carries centuries of history, myth, and memory in its opaque depths. Somewhere in that silty water, a blind dolphin surfaces, exhales with a soft bhush bhush, and sinks back into the dark. The sound is fleeting, but it carries the weight of a river’s story.

For Uzma Khan, that story became her life’s work. The dolphin’s breath pulses through every rescue, every survey, every fragment of data captured by a satellite tag. It is there in the stillness of dawn along the riverbank, and in the trembling of hands guiding a dolphin back into water that no longer always welcomes it. Where others saw only canals and barrages, she saw a creature older than empires, a voice from the Miocene calling for coexistence.

Her science was never sterile. It is tender. Her conservation is not only technical but personal, political, and poetic. She has stood in mud-choked waters, whispered comfort to struggling mammals, and confronted a system of environmental degradation armed only with knowledge, persistence, and the conviction that the Bhulan’s fate and our own are inseparable.

Today, only about 2,000 Indus River dolphins remain. Their habitat has shrunk by more than 80 percent. Each season brings new dangers: dams that block their path, nets that entangle, toxins that poison, a climate that grows less forgiving. Yet because of Uzma, they are not invisible. They are mapped, monitored, and defended. They are cherished. They are no longer forgotten.

And still, they are a reminder.

When the last dolphin breathes its final bhush bhush, the sound will not only mark an extinction. It will echo the failure of a river we refused to hear, and the silencing of a species that tried to warn us. Yet as long as Uzma’s legacy flows with the Indus, the breath of the Bhulan remains both a plea and a promise.

To save the dolphin is to save the river.

To save the river is to save ourselves.

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• References

  Associated Press of Pakistan. (2024, November 10). Indus dolphin – A model for biodiversity conservation efforts. https://www.app.com.pk/features/indus-dolphin-a-model-for-biodiversity-conservation-efforts/

  Easton, N. (Director). (2023). Freshwater (Season 1, Episode 4) [TV series episode]. In Planet Earth III. BBC Studios.

  Hadid, D. (2024, January 7). An endangered river dolphin finds an unlikely saviour: Fisherfolk. OPB. https://www.opb.org/article/2024/01/07/an-endangered-river-dolphin-finds-an-unlikely-savior-fisherfolk/

  Khan, U. (2018, May). The mystic Bhulan [Video]. TEDxLahore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl7su9z66SY

  Khan, U. (2023a, January 15). Save the Indus River Dolphin – A conversation with Dr. Uzma Khan [Video]. WWF-Pakistan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reSx98J_qI4

  Khan, U. (2023b, November 10). My first encounter with an Indus River dolphin – 1998. Whale Tales. https://whale-tales.org/my-first-encounter-with-an-indus-river-dolphin-1998/

  Khan, U. (2023c). Saving the world’s rarest freshwater dolphin. BBC One. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1483SDfCjk99GMDxmRQQYz2/saving-the-world-s-rarest-freshwater-dolphin

  NOAA Fisheries. (2024, July 15). Indus River dolphin. U.S. Department of Commerce. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/indus-river-dolphin

  WWF. (2022, January 21). First-ever satellite tagging of river dolphins in Asia. https://wwf.panda.org/es/?4902466%2FFirst-ever-satellite-tagging-of-river-dolphins-in-Asia

  WWF. (2023, October 24). Historic declaration offers hope for world’s endangered river dolphins. https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?9946966%2FHistoric-declaration-offers-hope-for-worlds-endangered-river-dolphins

• Metadata

  Website Name: The Matilda Project

  Title of Entry: Uzma Khan

  Author: Shehroze Saharan

  Illustrator: Kai Lynn Jiang

  Editor: Mayoorey Murugathasan

  Original Publication Date: September 06, 2025

  Last Updated: September 06, 2025

  Copyright: CC BY-NC-ND

  Webpage Specific Tags: Uzma Khan; Conservation biologist; Indus River dolphin; Freshwater conservation; River dolphin rescue; Endangered species protection; Women in conservation; Pakistan wildlife conservation; WWF-Pakistan; River dolphin initiative; Empathy in science; Citizen science in Pakistan; Community-based conservation; Aquatic mammal conservation; Dolphin satellite tagging; Global Declaration for River Dolphins; Wildlife education in Pakistan; Women leaders in STEM; Bhulan conservation; Freshwater biodiversity; Environmental advocacy in South Asia; Indus River ecology; Wildlife rescue operations; Intersection of science and compassion; Early female conservation leaders in Pakistan; Acoustic pingers for bycatch reduction; Science communication in conservation; Indigenous knowledge and conservation; Planet Earth III dolphin rescue; Science and empathy integration; Conservation legacy of women; Asia coordinator for WWF River Dolphin Initiative.

  Website Tags: The Matilda Project, The Matilda Effect; Margaret W. Rossiter; Matilda Joslyn Gage; Implicit bias; Unconscious bias; Gender attribution bias; Scientific recognition bias; Gender discrimination in academia; Stereotype threat; Pay gap in STEM; Glass ceiling in science; Sexism in scientific research; Gender stereotypes in education; Gender bias in peer review; Bias in STEM hiring practices; Impact of gender bias on scientific innovation; Underrecognition of female scientists; History of women in science; Women scientists in history; Notable women in science; Pioneering women scientists; Women Nobel laureates; Female role models in science; Gender disparities in scientific research; Women's suffrage movement; Historical women's rights leaders; Historian of science; STEM gender gap; Women in STEM; STEM education; Challenges faced by women in STEM; Representation of women in tech; Initiatives to support women in STEM; Gender equity in STEM education; Encouraging girls in STEM; STEM outreach programs; Diversity in STEM curriculum; Equity, Diversity, Inclusion; Equity in education and workplace; Diversity training; Inclusion strategies; Inclusive leadership; Gender equality; Racial equity; Pay equity and transparency; Representation in media.

• Citation

  APA Citation:

  Saharan, S. K. (2025, September 6). Uzma Khan. The Matilda Project. www.thematildaproject.com/scientists/uzma-khan

Author

Shehroze Saharan

Senior Manager, Institutional AI Strategy Development and Support - Vice-President, Digital Transformation and Chief Information Officer at George Brown College

Shehroze Saharan is the Senior Manager, Institutional AI Strategy Development and Support at George Brown College, where he leads the development and implementation of a college-wide strategy for the ethical and strategic integration of artificial intelligence across academic and operational environments. His work spans AI research and policy, adoption support, employee training, and faculty engagement, while also advising senior leadership on aligning AI initiatives with the college’s broader digital transformation agenda.

Previously, Shehroze served as Educational Technology Developer at the University of Guelph, where he was the institution’s pedagogical lead on AI in Education (AIED). He is also the founder and leader of the Teaching with Artificial Intelligence Conference, now the largest AI in Education event in Canada.

Shehroze holds a Master of Information from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Science from the University of Guelph. He is currently completing his Ph.D. at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, where his research explores Generative AI in curriculum and pedagogy.

Beyond his institutional role, Shehroze is the Managing Director and Co-Founder of The Matilda Project, an award-winning open educational initiative that highlights the contributions of historically overlooked women in science.

Illustrator

Kai Lynn Jiang

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