Beachgoers in southern Spain were transfixed by the appearance of a baby dolphin stranded on the beach. Then they accidentally killed it, according to Equinac, a Spanish nonprofit organization that defends the livelihood of marine wildlife. According to a post the nonprofit put on Facebook, the unfortunate incident happened on August 11 in the coastal area of Mojácar in southern Spain.
After discovering the ailing dolphin, multiple groups, totaling "hundreds" of curious vacationers surrounded the animal, touching and taking pictures with it. As Equinac points out in their post, dolphins, unlike fish, breath oxygen in the air through their blowhole, not oxygen in water with gills. And so when the people on the beach were handling the young mammal, they likely covered its blowhole, causing it to either die from suffocation, or extreme shock. Despite the efforts of one worried beachgoer, who called 112, the nation's emergency services line to report the beached dolphin, Equinac members arrived too late to save the dolphin. It had died during the 15 minutes it took for Equinac to got get to the scene. According to Equinac, while it's possible that the dolphin had been isolated because it was already sick, the animal could have died as a result of the stress and or shock of being being handled by the beachgoers.
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As the group wrote, “The photographs showed children touching the animal, unintentionally covering the spiracle. It’s not an animal for children or adults to caress,” adding, "Cetaceans are very susceptible to stress and crowding around it to take photos and to touch it causes them a big shock which greatly accelerates a cardiorespiratory failure, which is what happened.”
Last Friday's events echoed a similar incident from last year, in which beachgoers in Argentina apparently picked up an endangered baby dolphin to take selfies with it.
As Equinac wrote on Facebook in the immediate aftermath of the baby dolphin's premature death, "Once again we note that the human being is the most irrational species that exists." "There are many [who are] incapable of empathy for a living being that is alone, scared, starved, without his mother and terrified.” the post read.
As The Washington Post reported, the nonprofit posted a follow-up to their original post on Saturday, August 12, asking, "Do we have to continue to justify our anger," continuing "These animals are protected, the law forbids doing this type of actions with them."
"Ignorance has absolutely nothing to do with respect, empathy, and logic," the animal rights group concluded.
Related: A Tiny Dolphin Just Died Because a Group of Tourists Tried to Take a Selfie With It
