SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — A dolphin well known to locals found itself tangled up in more than three pounds of fishing wire and gear.
Early yesterday morning, a group of experts teamed up to come to its rescue.
“It had a lot of fishing lines wrapped around its dorsal fin all the way to its flipper,” said Blair Mase, southeast regional coordinator for the Marine Mammal Stranding Network, under the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Mase said because of the high risks involved with capturing a free-swimming wild dolphin, she contacted Sea World to help assist in the rescue.
A team of 30 worked together to help the dolphin get loose of fishing gear.
“We needed to take action because if we didn’t, we felt that this animal would eventually expire from this entanglement,” Mase said.
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ONLINE:
www.fisheries.noaa.gov/pr/health/report.htm
PHONE:
800-9MAMMAL (800-962-6625)
