Dolphin freed after it was caught by fishing line at Bedok Jetty

SINGAPORE — A wild dolphin which was entrapped by a fishing net at Bedok Jetty over the weekend was finally freed with the help of members from the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres).

Posting a video of its rescue efforts on Facebook on Tuesday (April 10) evening, Acres said the rescue operation took around an hour.

“The wild dolphin seemed to have a foreign object entangled on the tail fin, which was weighing down the animal, preventing him or her from swimming and breathing properly,” said Acres.

“The Acres Wildlife Rescue Team jumped into action and we are delighted to share with everyone that the dolphin has been freed”.

The team managed to remove the object from the dolphin, and found it to be fish net weighing a total of eight kilograms. The net had fishing weights attached to it as well.

“(We wish) the dolphin all the best in the wild (and) hope (that) he or she doesn’t get caught in a net again,” Acres added.

On Saturday, a video was widely circulated on social media of a dolphin caught by a fishing line of an angler at Bedok Jetty.

Eyewitnesses reported that the mammal was seen struggling and bleeding at its tail while the angler was trying to reel it in. A member of the public contacted the authorities and the fisherman cut his line shortly after, and the dolphin drifted away.

The dolphin was sighted again the next day at the west of the jetty along East Coast Park, before Acres came to its rescue.

Dolphins are not a rare sight in Singapore waters. In 2016, a dolphin carcass washed ashore at East Coast Park.

The dead dolphin was identified as an Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphin — or pink dolphin — the most commonly sighted dolphin species in Singapore waters.

In sightings reported to the National University of Singapore’s Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI), at least 169 dolphins were spotted between 2008 and 2011 in the waters between Singapore and Batam, near St John’s Island and Pulau Semakau, and as close to shores as the Marina Barrage.

In 2012, at least another 50 of the mammals were sighted — the most recent year that proper records were kept before TMSI’s work was cut short when the conservation arm of Wildlife Reserves Singapore stopped funding a three-year study.