People in Japan are being attacked by a ‘horny, lonely’ dolphin

Japanese biologists believe that a “lonely” Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin searching for a mate is responsible for a series of attacks on 18 beachgoers near the town of Tsuruga in Fukui Prefecture, Japan, this year. One of the most recent incidents occurred at Mizushima Beach on Aug. 20. During the incident, a boy and the man who tried to rescue him were attacked, with the boy requiring 30 stitches for his injuries.

What they’re saying: “We know that [male dolphins] sometimes communicate by biting each other, so it may be that it is trying to do this with humans,” Mari Kobayashi, head of the marine biology laboratory at the Hokkaido-Okhotsk campus of Tokyo University of Agriculture, told South China Morning Post. “Also, this is a species that usually lives in groups, so it is possible it is lonely.” Putu Mustika, a marine researcher at James Cook University in Australia, told the New York Times that its actions could be that of a “horny, lonely dolphin.”
Other attacks: At least 45 incidents of dolphin attacks have been recorded in Wakasa Bay, which spans the coasts of Kyoto Prefecture and Fukui Prefecture, since 2022. Ryoichi Matsubara, the director of Echizen Matsushima Aquarium in Fukui, told the Times that the culprit behind the 2022 and 2023 attacks appears to be the same male Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin. Although he has not yet reviewed the recent videos, Matsubara believes that the same dolphin may also be responsible for the attacks in 2024.

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