KAILUA-KONA — A necropsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death of a dolphin recovered Monday from Kealakekua Bay.
Tom Elliot, stranding coordinator for the Big Island with NOAA’s Pacific Island Region Marine Mammal Response Network, said Tuesday that there were no signs of shark bites on the corpse, though there had been reports of a shark in the area.
Elliot, one of three volunteers who responded around noon Monday to the report, was unable to say how long the dolphin may have been deceased, but noted that when recovered its body was not in “very bad shape.”
He added that Department of Land and Natural Resources staff was able to contact a cultural practitioner to say a prayer, or pule, over the dolphin before it was transported to be flown to Oahu.
Gordon Leslie, a prominent member of the Napoopoo community who’s lived on the bay for four decades, was the person to bless the naia, which is the Hawaiian word for dolphin.
“I thought that was very sensitive, that before she moved the naia and sent it to Honolulu, she wanted some proper send off from the village, from the community, so they called me and asked if I can find someone,” said Leslie who added that all the people he knew were too far away to make it to the bay in time.
A necropsy was conducted Monday by Kristi West with the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Results from the probe will take some time, unless there is something “grossly obvious” found to determine cause of death, Elliot said.
The DLNR said a tourist reported Monday seeing the dolphin in waters at the north end of Napoopoo beach, before the pali, or cliff. Though people reported seeing a shark in the area, a Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement officer did not observe see any sharks while there.
Kealakekua Bay is home to a pod of resident spinner dolphins, according to DLNR. The bay provides one of the few available daytime resting areas for naia on the island. It’s also used for feeding, resting and playing.
In the event someone does come across alive stranded marine mammal, Elliot stressed people should never try to push the animal back into the water because “a lot of these animals are so sick that when they strand they are trying to breathe and not drown.”
Instead, report it to NOAA by calling (888) 256-9840.
No way to know if stress from the notorious “dolphin chaser” tour boats had anything to do with it.
Too bad, we need all the evidence we can get to stop the $$ harassment industry.
We gotta ask ourselves, why? Why after all these years of NOAA’s attempt to amend the Marine Mammals Protection Act to add protections for our Naia, has it not happened? What singular activity is causing this procedure to stall? Or is that multiple activities? What lobbying group is putting so much pressure on NOAA? How is that group funded? Where are our representatives in the Senate and Congress in DC? What trade off have they made to stay silence? Could this one death be the tragic stepping stone?
There are multiple reasons why NOAA’s new rules have been stalled. The first was a demand that they have scientific study which took more than a few years. The process is a long and interminally slow one. They are now facing an administration that may or may not approve of the rule when it is proposed this spring. If it is killed there, it will be difficult to know whether the naia will ever be protected. Also, if the new rule is improved, the dolphinistas are lining up now to be the first to sue (something about their rights to pursue, swim with, harrass and touch). Something about their rights to practice their religions and, by the way, they have now co-opted Hawaiian culture and are claiming that Hawaiian cultural practitioners have encouraged them in this activity from the beginning.
The dolphins are undisturbed less than 8% of the time that they would normally rest, sleep, and socialize with their own species. My apologies to those swimmers who also claim to be dolphins, but you are not.
The group doing the lobbying btw are funded by their tours (big money there).
Dolphin’s die just like people do. If more at the same time, then it would be a big deal.
Dolphins do die, but this is the first that has been recovered inside the bays that I am aware of. Something is amiss. Any species that is not access to refuge and not allowed to rest will die off. Do we need to see that for the sake of entertainment? It is true that their numbers are in decline, inspite of some who are issueing “fake news” reports of an increase in population.
just so’s you know. There was a woman seen hanging onto a spinner by its dorsal fin a week or so prior to finding the dead animal.
Q: If dolphins lived on land, which country would they live in?
A: Finland.