ONE OF three dolphins swimming in the River Lee in Cork city died yesterday after it became entangled in fishing nets.
The three common dolphins swam along the river and were close to the city centre where they thrilled shoppers before the accident took place at lunchtime yesterday.
The male dolphin, described as a sub-adult – the equivalent of a teenage dolphin – died after it got caught in a fisherman’s nets at Tivoli, a short distance downriver from the city.
The fisherman cut him loose and tried to save him but efforts to prevent the dolphin’s death failed.
Scientists at UCC retrieved the carcass and plan to carry out a postmortem tomorrow. “It’s unusual that they would come so far up into the city – in fact it is very rare. This is a series of unfortunate events,” Dr Emer Rogan of UCC’s department of zoology said.
There is no plan to try and remove the remaining dolphins from the Lee, as doing so might cause more harm than good, a spokesman for the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group said.
“We won’t be rushing to force them out because they might be feeding – you have to be careful about making assumptions in these situations.
“It’s unusual they are there and we would prefer they were not, but if they were to be forced out, they could become stressed, making the situation worse,” the group’s spokesman, Pádraig Whooley, said.
The dolphins are the third species to swim up the river to Cork city in recent years. Bottle-nose and Risso’s dolphins visited previously. In 2001, three killer whales swam up to Union Quay in the city.
“Some of these species lived and some of them died. They take a gamble entering our river systems but if they are healthy, they should survive.
“Hopefully the postmortem will give us some indication as to why they are there,” Mr Whooley said.