As the only species of river dolphin to inhabit salt water, the La Plata are very special and rare, as well as extremely vulnerable. “At least one of these dolphins suffered a horrific, traumatic, and utterly unnecessary death, for the sake of a few photographs”.
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Many on Twitter expressed similar disdain for what appeared to be happening in photos and videos of the Buenos Aires beach mob.
After the dozens of Brazilian amateur “photographers” were satisfied with the amount of pictures they took with the terrified baby sea mammal, they just left it for dead in the mud, not even bothering to attempt putting it back in the sea. Considered a vulnerable species, there are only about 30,000 animals left in the wild, as they are under constant threat from gill nets, which injure or drown the unfortunate dolphins. They were held aloft by men as a crowd gathered around to snap photos of the tiny mammals.
It read: “The Franciscana, like other species, can not remain for much time outside of the water, it has thick fatty skin which gives it heat and means that taking it out of the water rapidly causes it to dehydrate and die”.
Many believe that is a sign that our social media culture has become increasingly narcissistic, and an incident on an Argentinian beach has revealed another incident where selfies have gone too far.
In the words of Argentine model Nicole Neumann: “Poor animal”.
Now a tourist who captured the video of the entire thing has claimed that the dolphin was already dead before it was pulled from the ocean.
The wildlife organization Vida Silvestre urged people to return any La Plata dolphins to the water if they come across them.
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He said how long a dolphin can live out of water depends on its overall health. Marine biologist and scientific director of the Whale Conservation Institute in Argentina, Mariano Sironi told the Press that these dolphins hunt close to the shore and often baby dolphins end up closer if they are sick or get separated from their mother. It’s not a toy. “It’s alive and it’s suffering, ‘” he said.
