A rough-toothed dolphin named Jiang Jiang has been released back into the wild following over two months of care in captivity, according to Global Times.
On May 3, police were alerted to a stranded dolphin on the Heisha Bay coast of Jiangmen City. They then contacted the Pearl River Estuary Chinese White Dolphin National Nature Reserve for assistance.
Jiang Jiang was kept at a pool in Zhuhai, where it received extended treatment before being returned to the ocean on July 20.
The positive story comes as a small but much needed victory for cetaceans, which, in the past year, have popped up in the news for a number of dreadful reasons.
Not only are they being imported in droves, especially to Guangdong, to satisfy China’s growing water theme park industry, but they are also seemingly perishing en masse in the nation’s coastal waters.
In the month of March alone, a 20-ton whale was found dead off the coast of Shanghai, a pregnant sperm whale died in Guangdong just days before it may have given birth and, perhaps most gristly, a decapitated Chinese white dolphin was being sold at a wet market near Zhuhai.
In Hong Kong, dolphin sightings are also at their lowest numbers since 2002, and experts believe the numbers are steadily shrinking.
Additional reporting by Matthew Bossons, Connor Frankhouser.
[Images via news.cn, h/t Global Times]
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