Free willy: Bottlenose dolphin rescued, released into sea

Fishermen spotted the mammal along the coast of Balochistan.

KARACHI: A common bottlenose dolphin was found entangled in a tuna gillnet around 100km south of Kund Malir along the Balochistan coast on Wednesday.

According to sources, a few fishermen on the alRaza Hussain boat were out at sea about 96km south of Kund Malir when they spotted a seven-foot-long bottlenose dolphin. They said that the dolphin was alive and entangled in a tuna gillnet.

The fishermen rescued the dolphin and released it back into the sea. After releasing the dolphin, the fishermen took a few photographs, which were later shared by the World Wide Fund for Nature — Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan).

While talking to The Express Tribune, an official from WWF-Pakistan said that dolphins and whales are known to drown quickly once they get entangled in gillnets. He added that dolphins came up to the surface about three times a minute to breathe in air normally. However, if they are very active they may surface 10 to 12 times per minute. This can get problematic when the mammals become entangled in fishing nets as they cannot breathe properly and can die as a result.

Muhammad Moazzam Khan, a marine fisheries technical adviser at WWF-Pakistan, said that the common bottlenose dolphins scientifically known as tursiops truncatus were found in offshore shelf waters along the coast of Pakistan. “An active dolphin dies immediately once it becomes entangled in fishing gear because it cannot reach the surface to breathe,” he said. “This is a rare case.”

WWF-Pakistan officials said that their organisation has initiated a study on the assessment of mortality of the cetaceans (dolphins and whales) in the gillnet fisheries.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th, 2015.