Murdered Dolphin Washed Ashore in Bulgaria Yet Again

A murdered dolphin has been washed ashore on the Southern Bulgarian Black Sea coast. Photo by BGNES

A killed dolphin has been washed ashore on the Coral Beach on the Southern Bulgarian Black Sea coast in a seeming repeat of a last year's case.

As of noon on Thursday, the dolphin's corpse, which was first discovered Wednesday night, was still lying on the beach because of the apparent lack of coordination of the respective Bulgarian authorities that are supposed to remove it and investigate the incident, according to beach concessionaire Atanas Rusev, as cited by BGNES.

Upon tackling the same problem last summer, Rusev became publicly famous with his descriptions of the shocking incompetence and lack of coordination of an array of Bulgarian authorities – ranging from the central government and the Environment Ministry, all the way to the local authorities.

Unlike last year's case, the dolphin washed ashore on the Coral Beach has not been shot but one side of its body does have several holes signifying severe injuries.

"Last year I got all the way to the Parliament. Agriculture Minister Miroslav Naydenov publicly promised that this will never happen again, and now it is repeating, even more shocking than before," Rusev is quoted as saying.

The concessionaire of the Coral Beach did reveal that last year a total of 25 dead dolphins were washed ashore on his beach; of those, 24 had died of natural causes. This year's tally is 8 dolphins dead of natural causes, with only the last one having been killed.

"This dolphin here has been killed. It is 2 meters long. The bigger dolphins washed ashore are usually the victim of a murder. This here has had its right fin chopped off, and has been stabbed several times with something, and has also probably been beaten with an oar – its entire side is black," Atanas Rusev explained.

"15 hours have passed since we found it, nobody has arrived to inspect it. It is still on the beach, it stinks, there are kids here, this is just unbelievable. I have left it on the beach on purpose so that the media can photograph it – but why are the media here before the authorities?" he asked, adding that if the dolphin had not been killed but had died of natural causes, he would have removed the corpse immediately.

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