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Environmentalists are expressing alarm over a growing number of dead dolphins that have washed ashore in Mauritius after a Japanese ship ran aground last month, spilling oil in the famous blue lagoons off the Indian Ocean island.
Greenpeace said on Friday that 39 dead dolphins had been found since the ship hit a coral reef on July 25, spilling 1,000 tons of fuel oil into the sea. A government report said the figure as of Thursday was 26 dead melon-headed whales, which are members of the dolphin family, as well as one bottlenose dolphin.
The deaths, which have risen in recent days, have added to growing concern that the spill could be disastrous for Mauritius, whose lagoons, lush rainforests and mountains drew 1.3 million visitors last year.
Greenpeace said an urgent investigation was needed to determine if the oil spill was killing marine mammals. The organization said the dead dolphins had not eaten and were under stress.
Local fishermen have started pounding iron bars to create a “sonar wall” to prevent more animals from being stranded on shore, Greenpeace said.
“This is a deeply sad and alarming day for the people of Mauritius and for its unique biodiversity,” Happy Khambule, senior climate and energy campaign manager at Greenpeace Africa, said in a statement Wednesday. He said that Greenpeace had urged authorities to “carry out a public, rapid and transparent autopsy of the collected bodies.”
The Wakashio, a Japanese-owned but Panamanian-flagged bulk carrier, was carrying 200 tons of diesel and 3,800 tons of fuel oil when it ran aground off the southeastern coast of the small island nation. The crew was rescued, but the ship remained at sea for nearly two weeks, while authorities deployed a 550-yard-long fence around the ship and hundreds of barriers. Initially they said that no spill had been detected.
But bunker fuel leaked from the ship on August 6, and the ship broke apart on August 15, according to Tokyo-Mitsui OSK Lines, Ltd., the company that rented the ship. Three days later, two of the ship’s officers were arrested by Mauritian authorities and charged with unsafe navigation, the company said.
The authorities declared a “state of environmental emergency” and said they were working with experts from France, Japan, India and the United Nations to contain the spill.
But many Mauritians said the government was not prepared for such a catastrophe, even though the country had been the scene of at least three shipwrecks in the last decade.
Mauritius, more than 1,200 miles off the east coast of Africa, is on the path of the trade routes linking Asia with Africa and Latin America. The Wakashio, a 300-meter-long vessel built in 2007, was heading for Brazil from China when it ran aground more than a mile from Mauritius, according to Marine Traffic, a tracking service.
In the days following the grounding, authorities deployed just a few hundred meters of barriers, environmental experts said, which was not enough to contain the spill.
Mauritius residents responded on their own, using improvised explosives made of cloth and sugar cane leaves to contain the spill, and plastic bottles to clean up the stain. They also cleaned up beaches and raised awareness online about the extent of the damage.
Véronique Couttee, a conservation biologist originally from Mauritius, said the spill had united residents angered by the government’s response to the disaster, which she said was alarmingly slow.
“I have never seen my country more unified because we realize that we all live in an ecosystem and protecting it is very important,” he said.
She questioned why there were no stricter rules to protect the island from international shipping, given the country’s dependence on fishing, recreation and tourism. Even before the spill, Mauritius’s economy had been hit by the cancellation of international flights amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“It has been incredibly heartbreaking for me and all the other citizens of Mauritius,” said Ms. Couttee. “All the livelihood of a community depends on this area.”
Tokyo-Mitsui OSK Lines said it had sent employees and equipment to clean up the spill and that it would “continue to work with the relevant authorities in Mauritius and Japan to mitigate the situation as soon as possible together with the shipowners.”
Greenpeace has asked the ship’s owners and operators to take full responsibility for the spill and to pay for current and future damages, including loss of livelihood and environmental costs.
The organization has also asked the government to fully investigate the causes and consequences of the grounding and to begin a review of the transportation routes.
“The ocean is part of who we are,” said Vijay Naraidoo, co-director of Dis Moi, an environmental group in Mauritius, in a statement issued by Greenpeace. He said the entire country depended on the ocean for its health. “This is why many Mauritians woke up in anguish and fearful that the oil spill is killing them,” he said. “Such loss of biodiversity is a sinister advance for what could happen as a result of the oil spill.”
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