ST. PETERSBURG – NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement and agency partners are now offering a reward of up to $54,000 dollars for information on the recent deaths of two dolphins in Florida.
Biologists with FWC discovered a dolphin that was fatally wounded with what appeared to be a bullet and/ or sharp object off Naples, late last week. The same week, Emerald coast wildlife refuge experts found a dolphin with a bullet in its left side along Pensacola Beach.
“We’re looking for anything that anyone may have seen out on the water, anything that seems suspicious to them that they may not have thought about at the time or they saw a dolphin close to the vessel or maybe there was some odd people behavior associated with it,” says Bottlenose Conservation Coordinator, Stacey Horstman.
The NOAA enforcement hotline can be reached at 1-800-853-1964. For more information on the cases, you can visit their website.