From Sea Shepherd Hong Kong. Injured Chinese White Dolphin WATCH THIS VIDEO: https://vimeo/117379126 Today Weds 21st January 2015, Sea Shepherd Hong Kong located and documented an injured Chinese White Dolphin off the South West tip of Lantau Island. This animal was first sighted on the 17th January and has since then be observed by various entities. Today we followed the dolphin for over 3 hours from a safe distance so as not cause any additional stress to the animal. We observed the dolphin lingering at the surface, at times stationary appearing to rest. The lacerations on its back behind the dorsal fin appear to have come from a boats propeller with the tell tale evenly spaced chops. The final wound closest to the tail appears to go almost half the way through the tail and due to this the animal does seem to be unable to apply any downward pressure. This makes it unable to dive or move at any speed. On the occasions it did dive it was very shallow and for a very short time. The animal also appeared to exhale most of its air before diving which would equate to the short dive times. We followed the dolphin as it proceeded out into the busy high speed ferry channel, running a gauntlet of Macau ferries as well as other vessels. We decided that we needed to stay with the animal to ensure that any boat traffic avoided us, thus avoiding the dolphin, during this time 4 vessels altered course to avoid us. We followed for a total of 3.5hrs not wanting to leave the animal to fend for itself in the traffic. From our observations we believe this animal needs immediate veterinary attention are calling on the AFCD to intervene as soon as possible. Sea Shepherd is against all forms of dolphins in captivity for entertainment, however in this case we must consider what is best for the animal and if this means the animal being capture and receiving medical attention at Ocean Park’s facilities then this is the best option for the animal. Upon speaking with Ocean Park who are sub-contracted by AFCD for all marine mammal issues in HK, they also feel that the best and only chance of this animal surviving is for their vets to try and save the dolphin and if and when it is recovered it will be returned to the wild off of Lantau. Sea Shepherd are offering AFCD our assistance should it be needed, however we learnt this evening that AFCD have received multiple media calls urging against the capture of this animal, and therefore have decided to delay for two days. This could be fatal. From our observations today, leaving this animal to suffer is the cruelest option of all. It cannot swim with any speed or dive to evade any boats or hunt. It will likely die of a boat strike or starvation if it doesn’t succumb to its injuries in the next few hours. We have heard that it was sighted in a bay approaching fishermen who fed it some fish, but this is of course not a long term solution. Sea Shepherd Hong Kong urges the Director of AFCD to take immediate action to extend urgent medical attention to this animal.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 01:59:16 +0000