Infant dolphin ‘dies of stress’ after tourists pass it around
Beach-goers posing for selfies accused of killing animal they found stranded at Spanish resort
A BABY dolphin stranded on a Spanish beach died from stress after being passed around by beach-goers who manhandled it and posed for selfies, marine conservationists have reported.
The infant female was discovered on the shore in Mojácar, in the Andalusian province of Almeria, and was quickly surrounded by hundreds of curious bathers.
Adults and children were seen holding the young animal and taking photographs, in some cases covering its blowhole, the conservation group Equinac said.
The charity, which rescues and rehabilitates marine life in the area, said its team rushed to the beach after being alerted to the stranding by lifeguards last Friday. They arrived in just 15 minutes, the group said, but the animal was already dead.
A photograph posted on Equinac’s Facebook page showed an adult and two children holding the dolphin, one of them with their hand over its blowhole.
Mojácar is a popular destination with British tourists, though it is unclear if any were involved in or witness to the incident.
The group said the dolphin, which was still of suckling age, had become stranded either because it was unwell or had lost its mother, noting that in the latter case it would not ultimately have survived.
But it insisted there was no doubt that the actions of the beachgoers had put the young dolphin in “a state of very high stress” and brought on its rapid death.
“Possibly we might not have been able to save it, but we would have tried,” the group said.
“Cetaceans are animals that are very susceptible to stress, and their handling, the piling on them to take photos and touch them, causes them a very strong shock which accelerates, to a great extent, a cardiorespiratory failure, which is what finally happened”.
It said that humans were “the most irrational species that exists, there are many who are incapable of feeling empathy for a living being that is alone, frightened, dying of hunger, without its mother and terrorised, because many of us, in our egotism, only want to photograph and touch it.”
The death of the dolphin also drew outrage on social media and from animal rights groups.
PACMA, a political party that campaigns against the mistreatment of animals, appealed for “common sense and respect”, and urged anyone witnessing such behaviour by beachgoers to immediately call emergency services.
It is far from the first such incident: in January, a baby dolphin died on a beach in Argentina after being harassed by crowds of tourists, while in February last year, an endangered La Plata dolphin was passed around at an Argentine beach town until it died of dehydration.
Equinac has complained that such behaviour is a constant occurrence in cases of strandings.
“Do not leap on a frightened and weak baby dolphin to take photos,” it urged, adding: “We have been doing this many years and it happens in 100 per cent of beachings”.
‘There are many who are incapable of feeling empathy for a living being’