Outrage over the killing of a dolphin along the Alabama coast grew this month as the city of Orange Beach added money to a fast-climbing reward fund, pushing the total offered for information in the case to $23,000.
The City Council voted unanimously to contribute $3,000, joining a long list of local agencies, businesses and national organizations that had already pledged support. City officials said they had hoped to put up more but were capped by state law. “I wish it could be more but that’s all the law will allow,” Mayor Tony Kennon said before the vote. “So hopefully it will do some good to finding the culprit.”
The bottlenose dolphin was found dead on Dec. 6 along the shoreline of Cotton Bayou, a back-bay area of the city. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, preliminary results from a necropsy, the animal equivalent of an autopsy, suggested the dolphin had lived with a yellow-feathered hunting arrow lodged in its body for at least five days before dying from a secondary infection caused by the wound.
NOAA, acting as the lead investigating agency, announced on Dec. 8 that it was seeking information about the killing. Within days, an initial $5,000 reward offered by The Humane Society of the United States and The Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust had swelled to $20,000 through additional pledges.
Those contributions came from a broad mix of coastal and conservation-minded groups, including Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida, the Alabama Gulf Coast Reef and Restoration Foundation, the Coastal Alabama Business Chamber, the Cobalt and Cosmos restaurants in Orange Beach, Reel Surprise Fishing Charters, Gulf Chrysler in Foley, and the Coastal Conservation Association of Alabama.
“This is a senseless act that must not go unpunished,” said Susan Sizemore, the 2014 chairwoman of the nearly 1,000-member chamber, in a prepared statement. “Our board has voted to take a stand that actions like these will not be tolerated by the business people and individuals who call coastal Alabama home.” The chamber and the reef foundation each donated $1,500.
Phillip West, the city’s coastal resource manager, told council members that the reward announcements had already prompted several calls to NOAA investigators. “They said they were just making progress,” West said.
The Orange Beach dolphin was the second one found dead in the northern Gulf of Mexico within about a month, according to NOAA. The first, a pregnant dolphin, was discovered in late November in Choctawhatchee Bay near Miramar Beach, Fla., after being shot with a firearm.
Federal law offers wild dolphins strong protections. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, harassing, harming, killing or feeding wild dolphins is prohibited, and violations can be pursued either civilly or criminally, with penalties reaching up to $100,000 in fines and as much as a year in jail per offense.