BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines – The government’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) cited villagers in Cagayan’s coastal Santa Ana town for freeing 10 dolphins back to the sea after being trapped along its coastline over the week.
BFAR said that instead of butchering and partaking of them, the fisherfolk decided to release back to sea the dolphins, which were accidentally caught in a beach seine net at the town’s Palawig village on Nov. 29.
According to BFAR, the freed dolphins were three to 3.5-meter long and weighed about 120 kilograms each.
Dr. Jovita Ayson, BFAR director for Cagayan Valley, who praised the fishermen’s becoming environmentally conscious, said this was the second incident in less than a week that dolphins got entangled in fishermen’s nets in said area.
A scenic coastal town being developed as one of the country’s major tourism sites, Santa Ana, located on the northeastern tip of Cagayan, is a favorite stop-over of marine mammals like dolphins, whose species is classified as one of the world’s most critically threatened sea mammals.