A $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest of the person or people who did this is being offered. Image: NOAA
In mid-April, someone cut the head off a dolphin on Lea-Hutaff Island, a little patch of land north of Wilmington, North Carolina. Now, authorities are offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to a criminal conviction or the assessment of a civil penalty.
Someone called the the Southeast Marine Mammal Stranding Hotline on April 15 to report a dead dolphin on Lea Island, but since it’s a remote, undeveloped barrier island that’s only accessible by boat, there wasn’t a big rush to do anything about it. But when workers from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington got there, they found the dolphin, an eight-foot bottlenose, had been “intentionally mutilated and its head removed.”
When the University did a health assessment of the animal, they suspected it carried something called Brucella, which causes an infectious bacterial disease called brucellosis. It’s a nasty bug that spreads from animals to people, usually from ingesting raw dairy products, and can have lasting effects.
The necropsy of the decapitated dolphin hasn’t been completed as of this writing, but aside from the health concerns for the decapitator, the reward is being offered because cutting the head off a dolphin is illegal.
“Harassing, harming, killing or feeding wild dolphins is prohibited under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, as is collecting protected species parts,” NOAA wrote. “Violations can be prosecuted civilly or criminally and are punishable by up to $100,000 in fines and up to one year in jail per violation.”
Anyone with information about this incident should call the NOAA Enforcement Hotline at (800) 853-1964.
