A placid fishing trip on Friday last week turned “berserk” for three New Zealand men when a dolphin weighing more than 400kg appeared to fall out of the sky before crash-landing in their small boat.
No one was badly hurt when the 3.4m bottlenose dolphin jumped aboard the open-top boat, said Dean Harrison, the owner of the nearly 16-foot vessel.
Harrison and two companions were fishing near the Hole in the Rock, a picturesque spot off the far north coast of New Zealand’s North Island, while dolphins frolicked ahead. The men saw a shadow across the bright summer sun and heard an almighty boom — before chaos unfolded.
Photo: AP
“This one decided to jump on board and say hello,” Harrison said. “One minute everything was fine and then just like lightning striking, there’s a big dolphin in our boat thrashing around and breaking everything.”
The creature’s flailing snapped “every single fishing rod we had in the boat” and severely damaged the bow as the trio clung to the sides of the vessel, Harrison said.
One man had minor injuries to his arm where the juvenile male dolphin grazed his back and shoulder, but all three fishermen and the dolphin were otherwise uninjured.
However, returning the majestic creature to the sea was not an option for the trio due to its size.
“We looked at the dolphin still alive and breathing and we thought: We’ve got to start looking after him and figure out what to do,” Harrison said. “Because he’s stuck in the boat for now, so he’s coming along for the ride.”
The men alerted New Zealand’s conservation agency and were directed to a boat ramp an hour away, where workers waited to help the dolphin. On the way, the trio used a hose to keep the creature wet and protected it from the sun using a damp towel depicting players from the All Blacks rugby team.
On shore, members of a local Maori tribe prayed for the dolphin before it was returned to the ocean using a tractor.
Helpers gave the two-or-three-year-old creature a name: Tohu, which means “sign” in Maori.
Tohu is now also the name of Dean Harrison’s boat.
“The dolphin got to swim away and we got to walk away and we’ve all got a story to tell,” he said. “It’s a good ending in a situation that could have been very different.”
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS