Hate engraved in the flesh of a dolphin. Activists from the NGO Sea Shepherd published a video this Saturday afternoon which shows an atrociously mutilated marine mammal. On the mutilated body of the animal is inscribed with a blade a message to the address of the association. In this short sequence, while a member of the NGO speaks of “a victim of fishing”, we see the skin of the dolphin as if cut with a knife “SEA” written in large letters, followed by smaller ones, with the second missing H, “SHEPERD” and finally PD, near the caudal fin. A hateful message, against a backdrop of tensions between the association and local fishermen.
For Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, there is no doubt about the intention because “the fishermen put it back in the water to be found on the way back from an area where they knew we been patrolling for years”.
A protected species in Europe
On maritime watch since the beginning of February as part of its operation Dolphin ByCatch 7, Sea Shepherd is mobilizing against “fishermen who do not report accidental captures of dolphins when it is mandatory and a crime not to do so”. Protected species in Europe, dolphins have been for nearly a decade at the heart of a controversy between the NGO and the trawlers, artisanal or industrial, which deposit, according to Sea Shepherd, their nets in the living areas where they come to feed. cetaceans. Contacted this Saturday afternoon, the National Committee for Fisheries and Marine Farming did not wish to comment on the situation or the video which it had not yet seen.
This is not the first time that the NGO, at war against trawler operators, has made such a macabre discovery. In January 2020, a stranded dolphin had already been found in Vendée with the inscription “Sea Shepherd Fuck” engraved with a knife in the flesh. “Artisanal fishermen are shooting themselves in the foot by discrediting the entire profession,” laments Lamya Essemlali. “It’s lamentable and it underlines even more the importance of putting more transparency on what is happening at sea”, she underlines, asking for the installation of cameras on board boats and more selective fishing. “in order to stem the carnage”.
Sea Shepherd had filed a complaint “against X” in January after the discovery of several “mutilated and disemboweled” dolphins on beaches on the Atlantic coast. The Paris administrative court has already condemned the State, after a previous complaint from the NGO, for having “delayed in implementing concrete actions in view of the finding of recurring episodes (…) of excess mortality of cetaceans on the facade Atlantic, particularly in the Bay of Biscay”.