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Dolphin Free!
Dolphin rescue underway (ap)
Phuket, Thailand
5 January 2005
Edwin Wiek, of Wildlife Friends Rescue Center, reports,
"In the afternoon we headed back to the lagoon after buying life fish for the dolphin as we did not know how much longer she had to stay in there. Local fishermen were setting up new nets, and as I advised them before, they now dragged two nets around 5 meters from each other. This would make sure that the chance of the dolphin escaping in open water would be a lot smaller. She would return to the catching area when she found herself actually in a smaller space between the nets. This worked, and around 15:30 we had her in a corner and she got herself into the net. We then had her taken onto a stretcher on the back of a truck and drove her to open sea.
During the trip and at the beach we did administer antibiotics and cleaned her infected wounds. We also rehydrated her with almost 5 liters of clean drinking water. I was with her at all times and so was a Thai marine biologist that we called in the day before. It would have been best if had kept her at a basin for a few days for observation, but due to the lack of such facility we had no other option than to let her go. She went with great speed and I am convinced she will make it as her wounds were not too bad and she was in great "spirit" when she went off".
The younger dolphin is still in the lagoon. Attempts to rescue it will resume at daybreak.
The dolphins apparently rode the tsunami into the previously dry lagoon that now has seven meters of water in it. The lagoon is in Kao lak, which is one of the heaviest hit areas in Thailand. It lies on the mainland, just north of Phuket island.
In addition to Wiek, the rescue was assited by Jim Styres, who heads the Myanmar Dolphin Project in Thailand a rescue team from Athens Greece that did the in-water work.
Next story on the Dolphins......
Original story on the Dolphins......
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