The association for the defense of the oceans denounces “a shame” for France and deplores the lack of “concrete measures” from the State.
Dolphins “mutilated and disemboweled”, discovered on the beaches of the Atlantic coast. This is what pushed the NGO Sea Shepherd France to decide to “file a complaint against X”, she announced Monday, January 16 in a statement. “The sea no longer stops rejecting the corpses of dolphins, captured by fishing gear,” said the association, which counted six dead animals last week.
Every winter, hundreds of cetacean corpses wash up on the Atlantic coast. More than 280 corpses, 90% of which were common dolphins, have already been counted this year. Accidental capture by fishing gear is one of the main causes of mortality. Sea Shepherd denounces “a shame for our country”, regretting the lack of “concrete measures” from the State.
A phenomenon that is getting worse
The president of Sea Shepherd France, Lamya Essemlali, told AFP that the complaint would be filed Tuesday, January 17. This one, which also concerns the discovery of a dolphin in Vendée, at the beginning of January, aims at the article L415-3 of the Code of the Environment which condemns the “attack on the conservation of non-domestic animal species”. In 2020, France had been condemned for lack of protection of dolphins following a previous complaint from Sea Shepherd.
Since 2016, the Pelagis observatory has noted “an aggravation” of this 30-year-old phenomenon, alerting on its website on “a new intense episode of mortality (…) observed on the Atlantic coast”, “particularly early” – usually, the excess mortality rates are recorded between February and March.
