This Saturday the environmental organization Sea Shepherd published some images of a mutilated dolphin with the name of the NGO inscribed on its skin. The events have taken place in a context of strong tensions between the association and the fishermen of the area, accused of seriously endangering the survival of cetaceans off the Spanish Atlantic coast.
The NGO activists have shown the state in which the animal was found through a video posted on Twitter. His body was mutilated and someone had written the name of the organization on his skin with a knife. Sea Shepherd has referred to the dolphin as a “victim of fishing”, harmed by tensions between the association and local fishermen.
Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, declares that the fishermen “threw it back into the water so that we could find it on its way back from an area where they know we have been patrolling for years,” according to the newspaper Le Parisien. The French organization has announced that it will file a complaint for the “mutilation of a protected species”.
“We demand the opening of an investigation to identify the fishermen who committed this barbaric act,” the NGO reports in a tweet. Sea Shepherd is monitoring the area’s waters as part of its Dolphin ByCatch operation, a campaign to document the slaughter of thousands of dolphins as a result of incidental or unwanted catches.
According to the NGO, an average of 6,000 dolphins are killed each year on the west coast of France by large industrial trawlers and fishing vessels. That number could rise to 10,000 according to data from the La Rochelle-based Pelagis Observatory.
This maritime surveillance, which began in early February, has not been well received by the local fisheries. “Fishermen do not report accidental catches of dolphins when it is mandatory and it is a crime not to do so,” they explain. In addition, although the law requires the declaration of bycatch, in practice the State has not designated any regulatory body to receive this data.
Despite having laws to protect nature and species in the European Union, thousands of dolphins are still hunted in these waters. A protected species in the old continent, these cetaceans face an uncertain future and are the center of controversy and tension between environmental organizations and local fishermen.
According to different associations, trawlers deposit their nets in areas where cetaceans go in search of food. This is not the first gruesome find reported by Sea Shepherd activists in the area; In January 2020, they found a stranded dolphin with the words “Sea Shepherd Fuck” inscribed on its skin, in the Vendée, a territory located in the Pays de la Loire region.
Lamya Essemlali believes that “artisanal fishermen are shooting themselves in the foot by discrediting the entire profession,” according to Le Parisien. These facts reflect “the importance of putting more transparency on what happens at sea,” she insists, calling for more selective fishing “to stop this carnage.”
Sea Shepherd has already filed a lawsuit after the discovery of mutilated and disemboweled dolphins on different beaches on the Atlantic coast. The Administrative Court of Paris condemned the null action of the State after the discovery of recurring episodes “of excess mortality of cetaceans on the Atlantic coast, particularly in the Bay of Biscay.”
