Skip to content
All articles
  • All articles
  • About whales & dolphins
  • Create healthy seas
  • End captivity
  • Fundraising
  • Green Whale
  • Prevent bycatch
  • Prevent deaths in nets
  • Stop whaling
MicrosoftTeams-image (9)

Double Your Impact for Marine Animal Rescue & Response

On a chilly day this past December, the WDC North America team celebrated the first...
20230126_091707

WDC’s Education Wishlist = Cleared!

To the WDC Community, I want to thank you so much for your support of...
Hysazu Photography

Looking forward for Southern Resident orcas in 2023

Hysazu Photography 2022 was a big year for Southern Resident orcas - 2022 brought the...
Credit: Seacoast Science Center

The Unlikely Adventure of Shoebert, a Young Grey Seal Who Visited an Industrial Park Pond

Credit: Seacoast Science Center In mid-September, our stranding partners in northern Massachusetts were inundated with...
Leaping harbour porpoise

The power of harbour porpoise poo

We know we need to save the whale to save the world. Now we are...
Right whale - Regina WDC

Whale and Dolphin Conservation: Change Through Policy.

WDC focuses on education, research, conservation projects, and policy work to create a sustainable future...
Clear the list graphic

Clear WDC’s Amazon Wishlist for Giving Tuesday

UPDATE: We are thrilled to report that everything was donated off of our Amazon Wishlist...
Fin whales are targeted by Icelandic whalers

Speaking truth to power – my week giving whales a voice

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting is where governments come together to make decisions about whaling...

Another dolphin found shot in the Gulf of Mexico

WDC has reported on the growing number of incidents of dolphin vandalism in the Gulf of Mexico over the past several years, and has even offered rewards to encourage the public to help identify the perpetrators of these crimes.  We have shared our concern about an apparent and emerging regional trend involving the directed violence against bottlenose dolphins. Most recently, WDC received word of yet another dolphin death involving a gunshot wound in the panhandle region of Florida just west of Destin, near Okaloosa Island, Florida. 

According to the necropsy, this incident involved an older male dolphin that was found with a bullet lodged in his shoulder near the back of his head on May 9th.

The panhandle region of the Gulf of Mexico is known by regulatory agencies and conservation organizations as a ‘hotbed’ area of harassment. Interactions between humans and wild dolphins routinely occur through close vessel approaches or through direct contact associated with commercial or recreational fisheries, swim-with, or feeding activities. Such interactions are of serious concern for wild dolphin welfare and conservation under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, as well as for human safety.

In recent years, an alarming number of dolphins in this region have been fatally wounded by gunshot, hunting arrows, or sharp tools (i.e., screwdriver). The harassment or ‘take’ of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) resulting from increasing opportunities to encounter this species in the wild through commercial or recreational activities which put humans in close proximity to wild populations is of growing concern within the United States. The take of marine mammals, including harassment and feeding, is illegal under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), and concern is growing over human-dolphin interactions concentrated in certain coastal areas in the Gulf of Mexico where injuries or fatalities to bottlenose dolphins, specifically, have been documented.

These encounters, which bear great potential and risk for injury to the public and to individual dolphins and populations, may take the form of interaction with recreational or commercial fishing vessels and gear; direct interaction with humans through feeding or swim-with activities; or encounters with vessels during whale or dolphin viewing activities. Impacts to wild dolphins from these activities include conditioning and alteration of normal foraging and resting behaviors; disturbance and ultimate dispersal of populations from preferred habitat; injury from vessel strikes or directed harm, and reduced reproductive success, all of which can threaten survival.

Federal authorities continue to seek information relating to what appears to be a pattern of violence against dolphins along the coastlines of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Bottlenose dolphin stranding data maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show an apparent increase in the number of dolphins stranding dead with evidence of a gunshot wound in the northern Gulf of Mexico. From 2002-2014, at least 19 dolphins have stranded with gunshot wounds, with 63 percent of those occurring since 2010. These incidents are cause for concern considering the potential trauma and suffering experienced by individual dolphins in these cases, and also total unknown impacts on wild populations. The numbers of individuals recovered may only represent a fraction of total numbers of animals that may never wash to shore, strand, or become available to recovery efforts.

WDC is asking anyone with details about this incident to contact NOAA Law Enforcement at 1-800-853-1964. Tips can be left anonymously.