At least three dolphins have been shot and stabbed along the Florida coast in the past year. (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission)
As authorities struggle to find whoever shot a dolphin and stabbed another along the Florida coast this year, a federal agency has nearly tripled a reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the cruel killings.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is now offering up to $54,000, up from an initial $20,000 reward announced last month, the agency said in a statement Monday.
The case came to light in early February after biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission discovered a dolphin dead off a beach in Naples, a city in southwestern Florida. The animal had been fatally struck “by a bullet and/or a sharp object,” NOAA said in a statement at the time.
Within that same week, Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge experts found a dolphin with a bullet in its left side along Pensacola Beach in the Florida Panhandle, according to the agency.
Another dolphin stabbing from May 2019 is also under investigation. The animal was found off Captiva Island in western Florida “with a fatal puncture wound to its head,” officials said.
The person or people responsible for the killings could face up to $100,000 in fines and as much as one year behind bars.
Killing, harassing, hunting, feeding wild dolphins or even attempting to do any of these activities is prohibited under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Such cases can be prosecuted civilly or criminally.
Biologists believe the latest cases may stem from humans feeding wild dolphins.
“Dolphins fed by people learn to associate people and boats with food, which can put them in harmful situations,” NOAA said. “Dolphins may suffer fatal impacts from boat strikes, entanglement in or ingestion of fishing gear, and acts of intentional harm like these.”
Since 2002, nearly 30 dolphins have stranded in the Southeastern U.S. and there is evidence they were shot by guns or arrows or impaled with objects like fishing spears, according to the agency.
