The incident was reminiscent of a similar one last year in Argentina, when beachgoers picked up an endangered baby dolphin and passed it around for selfies.The animal later died.

In a subsequent Facebook post, the group said it had turned down media interview requests 'because we are not interested in circuses'. Those who see a stranded dolphin should call emergency rescue services rather than try to handle the animal, it added.Įquinac did not immediately respond to a request for further comment Wednesday. However, even though the beachgoers had not been responsible for the dolphin's stranding, merely touching and photographing the animals can cause them to enter 'a very high stress state' and, at worst, to experience fatal shock, the group said. The group later clarified that the baby dolphin may have been isolated because it was sick or somehow separated from its mother. All you want to do is to photograph and poke, even if the animal suffers from stress.'

'There are many incapable of empathy for a living being that is alone, scared, starved, without his mother and terrified…. 'Once again we note that the human being is the most irrational species that exists,' Equinac wrote on Facebook August 11, the day of the incident, blasting the 'selfishness' of those that had swarmed the animal. One concerned person reported the stranded animal to 112, the country's emergency services number, but by the time Equinac rescuers arrived at the beach, the dolphin was dead, the group said. Some accidentally covered the dolphin's spiracle, the blowhole the animals use to breath, the group said. The incident took place last Friday in Mojácar, on the country's southeastern coast, according to Equinac, a Spanish nonprofit organisation that advocates for marine wildlife.Īccording to several posts on the group's Facebook page, a baby dolphin that was stranded on the beach was quickly surrounded by numerous 'curious' people, including children, who wanted to touch and photograph it.

Baby dolphin