A West Hawaii dive instructor’s aid to a bottlenose dolphin off the Kona Coast has become an Internet sensation. A West Hawaii dive instructor’s aid to a bottlenose dolphin off the Kona Coast has become an Internet sensation. ADVERTISING Keller
A West Hawaii dive instructor’s aid to a bottlenose dolphin off the Kona Coast has become an Internet sensation.
Keller Laros, a PADI master scuba diver trainer at Jack’s Diving Locker, posted a video earlier this month of the dolphin approaching divers and Laros discovering fishing line wrapped around the animal’s pectoral fin and in its mouth. Laros, in a video shot by Martina Wing of Ocean Wings Hawaii, can be seen removing a fishing hook and cutting and unwrapping the fishing line, moving in circles with the swimming dolphin. In about three minutes, the dolphin is freed and swims away.
News of the Jan. 11 rescue spread around the world as media outlets picked up the video. Comments on Laros’s YouTube page indicated the United Kingdom’s BBC aired the video, as did CBS, ABC, CNN and Fox News in the United States. Wing’s video had more than a million views as of Thursday afternoon.
“I’m getting emails from all around the world saying thank you,” Laros said Thursday afternoon.
He said he hopes people take away a message that it’s important to do the right thing every day, whether that’s stopping a car for a pedestrian crossing the street or helping out a dolphin with monofilament line caught in its mouth and around a fin.
He’s using his 15 minutes of fame to call for support of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which next meets in March.
Laros, who has logged more than 10,000 dives, said he has removed fishing line from manta rays and turtles, but never a dolphin. He has seen dolphins approach approach tour groups about 20 times in the last few years, but never a solitary dolphin. This animal seemed to sense Laros was helping it, Laros said.
“He was rolling his body to make it so I can get to the fishing line,” Laros said, adding the dolphin also swam to him when Laros saw the line and injury and beckoned the animal to come closer. “The dolphin completely knew how to act.”
Bottlenose dolphins are bigger than spinner dolphins, about 10 feet long, and Laros said he was relieved the animal moved to the edge of the divers and snorkelers at Garden Eel Cove, offshore near Kona International Airport, while Laros was removing the line.
“When I pulled out the knife, my hands were shaking,” he added. “I was mostly thinking, don’t screw it up.”
