Wounded dolphin straggles near Boracay shores
Residents and tourists of Boracay Island on Tuesday took a break from the pleasures of the world famous island-resort to help save a wounded young dolphin which straggled near the island's shores.
The two-meter-long dolphin, identified as a pilot whale by dive instructors, was first seen around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday near the shores of Sitio Bulabog in the village of Balabag at the opposite side of the white beach. The area is popular for water sports like wind surfing and kite boarding.
Despite its name, the pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) belongs to the dolphin group.
The website of the National Marine Fisheries services of the US Department of Commerce (http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov) describes the short-finned pilot whales as larger members of the dolphin group reaching average lengths of 12 feet for females and 18 feet for males and adult weight of 2,200 to 6,600 pounds.
They prefer tropical and temperate waters found typically in deep waters and are often involved in mass strandings.
At least 15 pilot whales reportedly died in a mass stranding on Farewell Spit in New Zealand's Golden Bay on Tuesday. Another 18 are at risk of beaching and were being monitored by the New Zealand's Department of Conservation (DOC).
Nenette Graf, owner of the Green Yard Funboard Center, said her staff, along with wind surfing and kite boarding instructors, first brought the whale towards the open sea but it kept on coming back towards the shore.
"We are concerned because the whale kept on hitting its head against the rocks," Graf said in a telephone interview Tuesday night.
Around 5 p.m., the residents and the water sport instructors brought the dolphin out of the waters and transferred it to the white beach on the other side of the island, first through a van then on a raft attached to a speedboat.
But the dolphin returned to knee-deep waters around 5:30 p.m., said Graf.
Tourists and residents on the island flocked near the shore in the middle of the island, between Boat Stations 2 and 3 to watch the dolphin. The dolphin had bruises especially on its head most likely from hitting the rocks and reef.
The residents brought it to deeper waters for the third time Tuesday night and there has been no sightings of it after 8:30 p.m., said Graf.
The pilot whale is considered at a low risk of being endangered or vulnerable, according to the Red List of threatened species of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.