TORONTO -- Marine authorities in the U.S. are offering a $20,000 reward for information that leads to the criminals responsible for the deaths of two dolphins.
Last week, biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission discovered a dead dolphin off the coast of Naples, with what appeared to be a gaping gunshot wound or stabbing injury from a sharp object.
The same week Florida’s Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge recovered a dolphin with a bullet in its left side on Pensacola Beach.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) office of law enforcement has put up the reward. The organization’s southeastern office believes these cases may stem from humans feeding wild dolphins.
“Dolphins fed by people learn to associate people and boats with food, which can put them in harmful situations,” the NOAA said in a media release.
“Dolphins may suffer fatal impacts from boat strikes, entanglement in or ingestion of fishing gear and acts of intentional harm like these.
“You can prevent harm to wild dolphins by not feeding or attempting to feed them.”
Since 2002, the NOAA’s southeastern division has reported 22 cases of dolphins shot by guns or arrows or impaled with objects like fishing spears.
Harassing, hunting, killing or feeding wild dolphins is prohibited under U.S. law and violations are punishable by up to US$100,000 in fines and up to one year in jail.
