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Two Spaniards held in Senegal over capture of dolphins
8th May 2003
PALMARIN, Senegal
(News24.com South Africa)
Senegalese police arrested two Spaniards for capturing protected dolphins, three of which subsequently died, according to a local parks official.
The pair are suspected of capturing specimens of a protected species, said commander Mor Samb, conservation officer of the Saloum delta national park.
The Spanish suspects were picked up in the town of Palmarin, 160 kilometres (100 miles) southeast of Dakar, and were being held late Wednesday at a police station nearby. They claim to have a special permit signed by the fishing minister to capture four dolphins for use in therapy with sick children, notably in the treatment of autism.
One of the arrested pair, Joaquim Piza, a medic, said the fifth dolphin captured was a youngster who did not wish to be separated from its captured mother.
The Atlantic bottlenose dolphins were captured on April 27 in the southwestern town of Casamance. They were transported to a tourist camp at Palmarin and placed in a
pool but three females, including the mother of the young dolphin, died quickly, according to Piza.
A third Spaniard, a dolphin expert, was allowed to stay and tend the survivindolphins, with a view to releasing them back into the wild.
Samb said the two detained men had been asked, after their initial arrest, to pay a fine of 45 million CFA francs (68,000 euros) but had failed to do so and so had been picked up again.
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