Dead dolphins found near trawlers

Dead dolphins found near trawlers

Today the team on board the Esperanza found five dead dolphins, floating in the vicinity of two sets of pair trawlers. A piece of net was also discovered near the carcasses.

The five adult dolphins had obviously been trapped in the net and drowned in the struggle to escape. All of the animals had cuts to their beaks, fins and flippers.

They were found about 20 miles off the coast of Plymouth, England. Four of the bodies were recovered and loaded on to the Esperanza, while the fifth was washed away.

The Esperanza is currently touring UK fisheries where dolphins might be threatened to highlight the issue of 'bycatch'. Thousands of dolphins and porpoises die as bycatch in fishing nets every year in these waters. Many carcasses wash up on local beaches.

 

Potentially thousands more sink at sea - as would the five dolphins we found today, if we had not spotted them.

Fishermen deliberately mutilate some bycatch victims, attempting to make the animals sink. A dead common dolphin, with axe-like wounds on its body, was found on Burgh Island, off the South Devon coast, this week. It appeared that someone had tried to cut off the dolphin's head and tail.

Incidents like these show that the official dolphin death count is just a fraction of those that are actually killed in trawling nets. The total number of 'bycatch' deaths could be as high as 10,000. The problem is so severe that dolphins (and porpoises too) could actually be wiped out from waters around the UK.

We are calling on the Government takes urgent measures to stop the damage inflicted by destructive fishing practices.