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Dolphin meat eaters in France?
Posted 20th August 2003
Gesellschaft zur Rettung der Delphine - Society for Dolphin Conservation, Germany
This is what we have been asking ourselves after having been sent pictures of two dolphins stranded on the French Atlantic coast.
They clearly show that the muscle flesh had been removed.
An analysis by Dr. Manuel Garcia Hartmann, a veterinarian specializing in dolphins at the Duisburg Zoo, confirmed our suspicion:
"The dolphin was expertly cut up with a large knife. The muscles were professionally separated, the blubber was removed and the abdomen seems to have been slit open (this can not be seen) to have the carcass sink to the bottom. In my opinion, there are only two reasons for this: the muscles and the blubber were destined either for consumption or for use as fish bait."
The filleted carcasses were discovered near Concarneau, a port in Brittany whose main source of income is fishing and fish processing. Most likely the dolphins were caught in drift nets or trawls as bycatch and then slaughtered.
While numerous declarations of intent have been voiced by the EU Member States to reduce bycatch and direct killing of cetaceans, practice shows that little has changed in spite of the marine mammals enjoying protection, including a hunting and landing ban.
Each year, almost 8,000 harbour porpoises die in the nets of Danish and British fishermen operating in the North Sea.
The French Atlantic coast is notorious for mass strandings. Dolphins that died in fishing nets are washed up every year, as in 1997 when 500 dead dolphins stranded near La Rochelle or in 2000 when the wind drove over 200 dolphin carcasses to the coast (which we reported).
Courtesy GRD Press
Gesellschaft zur Rettung der Delphine - Society for Dolphin Conservation, Germany
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