The commander of the Split police vessel, Mate Merčep, and his two fellow police officers (Marko Tadić and Jure Katavić) from the Split-Dalmatia Police Department set out to monitor the state border towards Vis on Tuesday morning. However, a sudden call for help diverted them eight kilometers from their route, report Slobodna Dalmacija.
The policemen turned the vessel around and embarked on a new mission – rescuing a two-meter long and 70-kilogram dolphin, which they untangled from a net near Ciovo for about forty minutes.
“The fishers noticed a wounded and helpless dolphin and informed the 112 Center, and they informed us. If we had arrived half an hour later, the dolphin would not have been alive. He was wrapped in ropes that inflicted deep wounds on his body, so he didn’t even move from helplessness. That bundle of ropes damaged the back of his fin, and about fifty meters of rope were wrapped around him,” they said.
Marko Tadić went down to the ship’s edge and carefully tore those ropes after the three lured the dolphin to the boat.
“The dolphin received us as if he felt we wanted to help him. He was calm the whole time, and I guess he couldn’t be any different since he was exhausted. Who knows when the poor thing got entangled in a fishing line? Maybe it was five hours, and maybe it was a couple of days, we don’t know that. While I was slowly cutting the ropes around the dolphin, I was careful not to cut the rope with which my two colleagues held the dolphin,” Marko said.
Split-Dalmatia County Police Department
“The dolphin jerked a little because he thought we had released him, but it didn’t go that fast. A professor from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Zagreb helped us with advice and guided us on the phone. He told us that when the dolphin breathes and dives several times, then he can swim away. That’s how it was in the end,” Katavić and Merčep added.
In March 2019, Merčep was on a similar animal rescue mission, saving a Maltese dog that was drowning in the cold in the Lora area.
“Now he is housed in Kaštela, and I am thrilled that he is safe and warm,” said Merčep.
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