The inhabitants of the District of Yoff Tongor in Dakar, have attended a macabre spectacle: a large number of pilot whales (Globicephala melas) came aground on the beach. The residents who were present when the Whales landed on to the beach immediately intervened to try to help the survivors.
Alerted to this carnage, the Océanium team was dispatched to the scene in the early hours of the day, to measure the extent of the tragedy, attempt a rescue operation and alert the media. Locally, the population was naturally mobilized to assist the rescuers: children maintained the living animals in the water and a few sympathetic fishermen helped towing them offshore with their canoes. Through their intervention 50 mammals could be saved.
On Wednesday evening and despite all these efforts, there were 34 bodies on the beach. The causes of such drama are once more difficult to determine as usual: collective suicide, contamination, human disturbance, or what else ...?
Passed the bitterness of these findings, it may however withhold a really unexpected fact of this sad episode: the mobilization and spontaneity of the young people, aware of their ability to act against the inevitable. The important thing to remember today is the awareness of the new generations of their responsibility as to their potential problems of our time . And this lesson given by children is a promise of hope...