{"id":16511,"date":"2020-08-29T02:24:22","date_gmt":"2020-08-28T23:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/outrage-as-dead-dolphins-wash-ashore-in-mauritius-near-wakashio-wreck\/16511\/"},"modified":"2020-08-29T02:24:22","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T23:24:22","slug":"outrage-as-dead-dolphins-wash-ashore-in-mauritius-near-wakashio-wreck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/outrage-as-dead-dolphins-wash-ashore-in-mauritius-near-wakashio-wreck\/16511\/","title":{"rendered":"Outrage as Dead Dolphins Wash Ashore in Mauritius Near Wakashio Wreck"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Environmentalists have demanded an investigation into whether the dolphins were killed as a result of the spill from a Japanese ship, which was scuttled<\/a> on Monday after running aground in July and leaking oil.<\/p>\n

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The death toll may rise: fisherman Yasfeer Heenaye said he saw between 25 and 30 apparently dead dolphins floating in the lagoon on Friday morning, among scores of the animals that fishermen were trying to herd away from the pollution.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere was a mother and her baby,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was very tired, he didn\u2019t swim well. But the mum stayed alongside him, she didn\u2019t leave her baby to go with the group. All the way she stayed with him. She was trying to protect him.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He filmed as the calf wallowed on its side and died in front of them, floating on the waves.<\/p>\n

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Heenaye, his boat running low on fuel, motioned to Reuben Pillay, who tracked the mother dolphin. She initially looked normal, he said. \u201cBut in a few minutes she went on her side, one fin in the water, and one out of the water and then she started flapping her tail really really rapidly,\u201d said Pillay, a professional drone operator and environmentalist who is providing video to Reuters.<\/p>\n

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\u201cShe swam in circles in front of the boat, she moved her tail very violently and after about five minutes she just stopped moving, and she sunk \u2026 We heard cries, I thought it was a woman on the boat \u2013 but they told me, no \u2013 it was the dolphin.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The mother dolphin stopped moving and eventually slowly sank, tail first, beneath the waves. The dead baby floated on the surface.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe didn\u2019t know what to do. It was heartwrenching,\u201d Pillay said.<\/p>\n

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Earlier in the day, Jasvin Sok Appadu from the Mauritius fisheries ministry told Reuters that 38 carcasses had washed up on the beaches so far.<\/p>\n

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Autopsy results on 25 dolphins that washed ashore Wednesday and Thursday are expected in the coming days, he said.<\/p>\n

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So far veterinarians have examined only two of the dolphins, which bore signs of injury but no trace of hydrocarbons<\/a> in their bodies, according to preliminary autopsy results. The autopsy on the first two was conducted by the government-run Albion Fisheries Research Centre.<\/p>\n

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The dolphins have been dying in an area affected by an oil spill caused when the Japanese ship, the MV Wakashio, struck a coral reef last month.<\/p>\n

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On Thursday, Greenpeace called on the government of Mauritius to launch an \u201curgent investigation to determine the cause of the deaths and any ties to the Wakashio oil spill.\u201d (Reporting by Giulia Paravicini; Writing by Katharine Houreld and Giulia Paravicini; Editing by Toby Chopra, Alison Williams and Giles Elgood)<\/p>\n

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(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n

gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Environmentalists have demanded an investigation into whether the dolphins were killed as a result of the spill from a Japanese ship, which was scuttled on Monday after running aground in July and leaking oil. The death toll may rise: fisherman Yasfeer Heenaye said he saw between 25 and 30 apparently dead dolphins floating in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[6824,5711,10534,7951,10646,9488,10350,2399],"class_list":["post-16511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-ashore","tag-dead","tag-dolphins","tag-mauritius","tag-outrage","tag-wakashio","tag-wash","tag-wreck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/16219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}