Dolphin dies in arms of distraught fisherman on banks of Lee

A DISTRAUGHT fisherman has spoken of how one of the dolphins that have drawn huge crowds to the banks of the River Lee in Cork city died in his arms yesterday after it got caught in his net.

Anthony Quilligan said he and his father, Simon, fought desperately to save the young male dolphin but were too late.

It is believed the dead mammal was one of three that swam into the heart of the city on Monday.

“It’s a terrible thing to happen. It’s the saddest day’s fishing I’ve ever had,” Anthony said.

He and his father were using draft nets under licence to fish for salmon near the Ferry Boat Inn on the Lower Glanmire Road when the incident occurred at about 11.30am.

“We were hauling the nets when I saw the dolphin jump out of the water about seven feet behind the net,” Anthony said.

“He went back under the water and we started to haul the nets faster to get them out of the way, but I saw the net’s floats go under and I knew he was caught.”

They waded out and had the distressed dolphin ashore within 20 seconds and began cutting the nets.

“He was alive when we got him ashore. We were just getting the last bit of net off his tail, and I was holding his head up out of the water. We wanted to save the creature, but he died in my arms,” Anthony said.

“We’ve been fishing there all our lives and this never happened. We’re just shocked. It will take a while to get over it.”

Marine experts from University College Cork recovered the remains.

A postmortem is due to take place tomorrow to establish the exact cause of death.

Dr Emer Rogan, a lecturer at UCC’s School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, said it was a male sub-adult common dolphin.

She said it most likely “dry-drowned” after going into a state of shock. “But we can’t rule out whether it was sick beforehand.”

Yesterday, just two dolphins were spotted in the river between Lapps Quay and upriver, where they were joined by a seal.