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Canadian fishermen free dolphins trapped by ice
Source: Agencies |
February 22, 2009, Sunday
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A GROUP of fishermen and a teenage boy from a small eastern Canadian village were being hailed as heroes for rescuing three exhausted dolphins that had been trapped behind drifting pack ice for nearly a week, the wife of the town's mayor said yesterday.
Sadie May said the men cut a path through the sludgy ice in Newfoundland's Seal Cove harbor with their 5.4-meter trawler on Thursday night, freeing the dolphins from the small oval-shaped hole in the ice they had been swimming in for several days.
Two dolphins followed the open channel immediately, but the third was too weak and tired, May said.
"He could barely swim about, the little guy, and the men knew something had to be done," May said. "A kid, 17 years old with a survival suit, jumped into the water and the dolphin just kind of attached to him and wrapped his flippers around him, like a friend or a mate."
The teenager, Brandon Banks, helped tow the animal to open water, where it swam away, May said.
The dolphins somehow got stuck in the narrow, ice-filled harbor at the start of the week. They had been surviving in the shrinking hole in the ice, about 30 meters by 200 meters.
Residents of the close-knit community of 400, who were kept awake by the sounds of the crying dolphins at night, feared the mammals would succumb to suffocation if the ice continued to encroach on them.
Seal Cove Mayor Winston May had been pleading with the federal Fisheries Department to dispatch an icebreaker to create a channel.
Sadie May said the men cut a path through the sludgy ice in Newfoundland's Seal Cove harbor with their 5.4-meter trawler on Thursday night, freeing the dolphins from the small oval-shaped hole in the ice they had been swimming in for several days.
Two dolphins followed the open channel immediately, but the third was too weak and tired, May said.
"He could barely swim about, the little guy, and the men knew something had to be done," May said. "A kid, 17 years old with a survival suit, jumped into the water and the dolphin just kind of attached to him and wrapped his flippers around him, like a friend or a mate."
The teenager, Brandon Banks, helped tow the animal to open water, where it swam away, May said.
The dolphins somehow got stuck in the narrow, ice-filled harbor at the start of the week. They had been surviving in the shrinking hole in the ice, about 30 meters by 200 meters.
Residents of the close-knit community of 400, who were kept awake by the sounds of the crying dolphins at night, feared the mammals would succumb to suffocation if the ice continued to encroach on them.
Seal Cove Mayor Winston May had been pleading with the federal Fisheries Department to dispatch an icebreaker to create a channel.
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