Beijing, Jun 20: A dolphin died after photo crazy Chinese tourists hoisted it out of water to pose before cameras.
The grey creature was already bleeding due to an accident when the tourists began mishandling it in southern China’s Hainan province.
The grey creature suffered from “excessive bleeding” possibly because it had collided with a fishing boat before getting stranded in a ditch, the Shanghai Daily quoted an animal expert as saying.
Photographs posted on the Internet show tourists badly pushing and shoving to prepare it for taking pictures.
Upon realizing what was happening, two lifeguards rushed to disperse the crowd of tourists, while others called the oceanic bureau.
The witness also said he saw some tourists asking the lifeguards for permission to have their photos taken with the dolphin.
Workers with the city’s fishery authority arrived at the scene around 7 p.m.
Lifeguards had surrounded the dolphin to protect it by the time the fishery authorities arrived to take the animal to a salt water pool for treatment. Despite their efforts, the dolphin died.
Photos of the tourists holding the dolphin and posing with it were posted to the Twitter-like Sina Weibo and later went viral.
As of Wednesday morning, more than 83,000 comments had been posted with the trending hashtag, “Leave the dolphin alone, please.”