A sad picture took shape this weekend on the Atlantic coast.
Twenty dolphin corpses were discovered on the Landes beaches, between Mimizan and Tarnos, in just two days,
France Bleu Gascogne
reported on Sunday March 12.
Pelagis, the marine wildlife observatory which counts strandings in France, went there and counted 23 cetacean carcasses.
The westerly wind, which blew very strongly this weekend, would probably have brought the carcasses of marine mammals to the coast.
But their death is earlier: on some decomposing corpses, experts have noticed broken ribs or cut fins.
If they cannot draw definitive conclusions, they have nevertheless noted some hypotheses.
They first exclude the disease hypothesis.
“
From experience, sick animals are very thin.
There, these are dolphins who had a full stomach, who had therefore just eaten and who were in good health,
”explains Pascal Ducasse, a volunteer for Pelagis in the Landes, to our colleagues.
The man rather assumes an accidental capture of fishing trawlers, “
even if, given the state of decomposition of the bodies, we cannot affirm it 100%
”, he admits.
Read alsoAre sharks approaching the coast?
According to the Pelagis observatory, 395 small cetaceans were found dead on the French Atlantic coast from December 1 to February 15, 2023. Most are common dolphins, a protected species, and a “large majority” showed “traces
of
capture
in fishing gear
”.
On February 26, Emmanuel Macron had deemed the scenes of stranded dolphins "shocking".
He felt that France needed to “
improve (its) practices
” to better protect the dolphins.
President Macron had nevertheless insisted on the need to “
support
” the fishermen who could be affected by the suspensions: “
We will continue to improve our systems, to invest, and that will be very largely public money ( ...), in order to be able to stop practices that are dangerous and in any case better prevent them
".
"
This is a problem that I take very seriously, I am shocked, but I am so while remaining very respectful of our fishermen"
who must "
not be abandoned
" nor "
stigmatized
", had- he declares.
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