2 Spaniards held in Senegal
2003-05-08 09:19
Palmarin - Senegalese police arrested two Spaniards on Wednesday for capturing protected dolphins, three of which subsequently died, according to a local parks official.
The pair are suspected of capturing specimens of a protected species, said commander Mor Samb, conservation officer of the Saloum delta national park.
The Spanish suspects were picked up in the town of Palmarin, 160km southeast of Dakar, and were being held late on Wednesday at a police station nearby.
They claim to have a special permit signed by the fishing minister to capture four dolphins for use in therapy with sick children, notably in the treatment of autism.
One of the arrested pair, Joaquim Piza, a medic, said the fifth dolphin captured was a youngster who did not wish to be separated from its captured mother.
The Atlantic bottle nose dolphins were captured on April 27 in the southwestern town of Casamance.
They were transported to a tourist camp at Palmarin and placed in a pool but three females, including the mother of the young dolphin, died quickly, according to Piza.
A third Spaniard, a dolphin expert, was allowed to stay and tend the surviving dolphins, with a view to releasing them back into the wild.
Samb said the two detained men had been asked, after their initial arrest, to pay a fine of 68 000 euros but had failed to do so and so had been opicked up again in the presence of the regional prosecutor.