A small village in Brittany has had to ban people from entering the water after tourists have been terrorised by an aroused dolphin.
Zafar the dolphin has been frequenting the Bay of Brest in Brittany for several months now. To begin with, he was welcomed by the locals. He would entertain tourists. He would swim up alongside boats. He would even let swimmers hang on to his dorsal fin.
But those halcyon days couldn’t last forever. Now Zafar has become a menace to the village of Landévennec, reportedly because he is in a state of sexual arousal.
According to
The Telegraph, the randy dolphin has been scaring off locals and tourist by swimming up to them and trying to, er... rub them. He has tried to prevent swimmers from getting back on dry land, and even flipped one woman out of the water with his nose and up into the air.
Now the village has taken drastic action – banning swimmers from their beach when Zafar is about.
New bylaw issued last week by the mayor of Landévennec, Roger Lars state that: “Swimming and diving are banned on the village shoreline… whenever the presence of the dolphin is confirmed.”
“Approaching within 50 metres of the dolphin is also forbidden,” he continued.
Speaking to the Ouest-France newspaper, Lars added: “Several swimmers were frightened. [Zafar] even lifted up a woman swimmer last Thursday with his nose.”
Some, however, have called the move a step too far. Breton lawyer Erwan Le Cornec called the swimming ban “excessive,” and called from it to be overturned.
“The mayor wants to make dolphins look like almost ferocious beasts, completely unpredictable and likely to drown people,” Cornec said in a statement. “If you were to apply these rules across the board, whenever a pedestrian approaches a dog, even if it is on a leash, all the mayors in… France should issue bylaws banning pedestrians in town.”
