Unlike sharks, most vacationers get excited when they meet dolphins in the sea. As cute as the animals may look, they are not completely harmless: although very rarely, attacks occasionally occur, in which people are injured.
This was also the case last Sunday in Mihama, in the Japanese prefecture of Fukui. On Suishohama Beach, a dolphin injured four people in one day. First, according to the Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun, a man in his 60s was attacked by a dolphin while he was swimming with a friend about five meters from shore. He is said to have suffered several broken ribs and bites on his hand. On the same day, another man was bitten on the arm by a dolphin, and two people were injured later in the day.
It’s not the first time people have been injured by dolphins. Overall, the police in the prefecture have now registered six attacks since the beginning of the year. Several people were injured in the prefecture last summer, and a single dolphin was suspected to be behind the attacks. In other parts of the world, swimmers have also been injured by dolphins, such as in Ireland.
A few years ago, British scientists found evidence that dolphins find it “incredibly stressful” to swim with humans, according to reports from the “BBC”. In Japan, signs have been put up on the affected beach warning swimmers not to approach the animals.
Quellen: The Asahi Shimbun, BBC, The Guardian, The Independent
