A suckling baby dolphin died shortly after hundreds of tourists reportedly took photos with it, touched it and surrounded the mammal in southern Spain.
According to Equinac, a local NGO, the female dolphin, who was still of breast-feeding age, was either abandoned or got lost, turning up on a beach in Mojacar that was full of tourists on August 11, 2017.
The group, who posted pictures of the dead dolphin, wrote that hundreds of people rushed to take pictures.
Rescuers were called to the scene, but the animal died before they arrived.
“Once again we note that the human being is the most irrational species that exists, there are many incapable of empathy for a living being alone, scared, starved, without his mother and terrified, because of many of you, in your selfishness,” the organization wrote in a Facebook post.
“All you want is to photograph and poke, even if the animal suffers from stress.”
On top of people manhandling the infant animal, the group reports people also had no idea how to handle a dolphin properly and were even covering its blow hole in pictures, suffocating the calf.
While the group does not blame the tourists entirely for the dolphin’s death, they do note they were contributing factors.
“This offspring ranged from being sick or losing her mother, without which she can not survive, but crowding her to photograph and touch her, of course that causes these animals to enter a state of very high stress,” added Equinac.
@carmenweld
carmen.weld@bpdigital.ca
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
