Port Louis
Thousands of protesters demonstrated in the Mauritius capital Port Louis on Saturday to demand an investigation into an oil spill from a Japanese ship and the mysterious death of at least 40 dolphins that have been found near the site of the spill.
Environmentalists have called for an investigation into whether the dolphins died as a result of the spill caused when the bulk carrier, the MV Wakashio, struck a coral reef last month.
One protestor held a banner with a dolphin covered in oil reading “our lives matter” and another held one calling for the government to resign. Mauritian flags were waved across the packed square of St Louis Cathedral.
“We do not trust the government and the diluted information they’ve been feeding us regarding the management and responses to the oil spill,” Fabiola Monty, 33 a Mauritian environmental scientist, told Reuters from the square.
The government has said it will carry out autopsies on all the dead dolphins and has set up a commission to look into the oil spill. Two investigations are being carried out: one by the police on the crew’s responsibilities and one by a senior Shipping Ministry official on what happened to the ship.
So far veterinarians have examined only two of the mammals’ carcasses, which bore signs of injury but no trace of oil in their bodies, according to preliminary autopsy results.
The autopsy on the first two was conducted by the government-run Albion Fisheries Research Centre.
Autopsy results on 25 dolphins that washed ashore Wednesday and Thursday are expected in the coming days, according to Jasvin Sok Appadu from the Fisheries Ministry.
Local environmental group Eco-Sud, which took part in Saturday’s protest, said in a statement on Friday that representatives from civil society should be present during the autopsies and called for a second opinion from independent specialists.
The baby dolphin rolled over on its side, floating on the surface. Its mother repeatedly nudged its head above the oily waves in a lagoon in Mauritius, where environmentalists are demanding an investigation into the deaths of dozens of dolphins following the oil spill.
The footage — obtained by Reuters from a fisherman who tried to help rescue the dolphins — showed the last desperate moments of the mother and her calf before they both died.
At least 40 dolphins have been found dead in Mauritius — 38 who washed ashore, as well as the mother and her baby — since Monday.
The death toll may rise: Yasfeer Heenaye, the 31-year-old fisherman who filmed the mother and baby, said he saw nearly 200 dolphins inside the reef Friday morning, 25-30 of them dead.
“Some were injured and some were just floating,” Heenaye said. Fishermen were trying to herd the dolphins out of the lagoon into the open seas.
“Inside the reef there is oil spill on the water — if they stay inside maybe all of them will die — but if they go outside maybe they will survive. We were trying to push the dolphins outside the reef, making noise in the boat to make the dolphins go outside the reef,” he said.
“There was a mother and her baby. …He was very tired, he didn’t swim well. But the mum stayed alongside him, she didn’t leave her baby to go with the group. All the way she stayed with him. She was trying to protect him …to push the baby to get back with the group.”
But the baby wallowed on its side and died in front of them, floating on the waves, he said. “When I was seeing this, there was tears in my eyes. I am a parent of a little daughter, it is very difficult for me to see the mother struggle and try her best to save her baby,” Heenaye said.
A short while later, the mother had convulsions and died too, said another witness, Reuben Pillay.—Reuters
