“No more respect for the living”. While the cases of dolphins victims of fishing seem to multiply, a new lifeless mammal was fished out this weekend by the NGO Sea Shepherd during a patrol off Sables-d’Olonne, in Vendée. This time, the body of the dolphin, cut, was also scarified: on its side, the inscription “Sea Shepherd PD” (where the second “H” of the name of the association is missing) seems to have been inscribed with a knife. “Those who horribly mutilated this dolphin should never be allowed to fish again,” the association reacted on social networks on Saturday. We are filing a complaint against X for mutilation of a protected species and requesting the opening of an investigation to find the culprits. »
The NGO indicates that it will be present this Sunday afternoon in La Rochelle to present the corpse to the public and continue its awareness-raising actions around this problem. According to the Pelagis observatory, which has been recording cetacean strandings on the Atlantic coast since 1970, 282 common dolphins have been found dead since December 1, and 127 during the first three weeks of January 2023, compared to 73 in the same month in 2022. Some associations and deputies, who accuse the government of not doing enough, call for the winter suspension of fishing or the obligation to install surveillance cameras on boats.