Friendless Dolphin Attacks Swimmers, Terrorizes Japan Beach Town

A single and lonely bottlenose dolphin, who is suspected to be separated from its pod is allegedly attacking swimmers in Tsurga, a coastal town in Fukui Prefecture in Japan.

On August 20, a man in his 50s was bitten on both hands while he was  trying to drive off the dolphin. It was the 18th reported case of dolphin attack since July 21 and the second in 48 hours.

According to NBC News, the region has reported over 48 dolphin bite incidents in the last 3 years. Recently an elementary school student required 20 to 30 stitches after suffering a dolphin attack.

Marine experts feel a lonely male dolphin is involved in these attacks. It has been identified from injuries on the dorsal fin of the dolphin as dorsal fins are unique to each dolphin, similar to fingerprints in humans.

Tadamichi Morisaka, a researcher at the Cetacean Research Center at Japan’s Mie University, said that this particular dolphin appears to have been accustomed to human interaction over the years leading to his behaviour as it is unusual for bottlenose dolphins to approach, interact or bite with humans.

In a mail to NBC News, Morisaka also said the dolphin mainly wants to merely “interact with humans”, possibly owing to its loneliness rather than harm them.

Chief executive and founding director of Dolphin Research Australia, Elizabeth Hawkins, said, that the animal may have somehow got isolated. And, when socially isolated, Hawkins said, they “can be quite pushy, they can be quite aggressive, they can bite.”