On November 2, in the evening on the beach of Victory Park in Sevastopol, at dusk, unknown people unloaded four dolphins from a minibus and released them into the Black Sea. Eyewitnesses filmed it, handed it over to the police and the local edition of ForPost. It soon became clear that the director of the Flipper Dolphinarium released the animals because it was expensive for him to keep them.
He told the witnesses who filmed the video that the animals were not thrown away, but were “scheduled to be released into the wild.” Eyewitnesses asked why they did not sail away from the shore. “If you sit in prison for 15 years and then release it, will you swim right away?” – said the director of the dolphinarium.
“I just saw that they were sad in captivity, took it and released it. They also lacked funds. I sold all my property, I ran out of money. And when I felt the same as a normal man feels when he cannot support a woman, I let the animals go home, into the sea, ”Vladimir Kalnibolotsky later said .
When asked how he relates to the interest of the prosecutor's office and the police in this case, Kalnibolotsky replied: “Yes, I'm fine … all this noise. Though the prosecutor's office, even the general secretaries. This is my personal life, my animals. I felt that they were not well, I returned them back to the sea, ”he explained.
The dolphins lived in captivity for 10 years, so after they were thrown out, they were disoriented and did not swim anywhere, but remained in shallow water. According to eyewitnesses, three animals began to circle around and scream, and the fourth showed no signs of life. As a result, two washed ashore – they have already been caught. Two more dolphins were swept into the sea, they are being searched by the employees of natural supervision by the chips implanted in them.
The authorities of Sevastopol organized a rescue operation. This was announced in his Telegram channel by the governor of the city Mikhail Razvozhaev. “Specialists say that dolphins will die in the open sea. They are used to completely different conditions, so they should not swim far and will stay closer to the shore, where the water is warmer, ”he wrote.
Razvozhaev believes that "the situation is certainly difficult, but there are chances to save the dolphins." A trainer from the Koktebel dolphinarium, who had previously worked with these dolphins, was involved in the rescue operation. “She, together with specialists from the Sevprirodnadzor, the Sevastopol Civil Protection Center, will go to sea to try to find bottlenose dolphins. There is hope that the dolphins will recognize her, respond to her sound signals and swim up to the boat,” the governor said.
The head of Rosprirodnadzor, Svetlana Radionova, said that the director of the dolphinarium did this because of a legal dispute with the dolphinarium from Koktebel.
The Sevastopol police organized an inspection and the very next day opened a criminal case under Part 1 of Art. 245 of the Criminal Code – "cruel treatment of an animal for the purpose of causing him pain or out of hooliganism, as well as selfish motives."
“Police officers inspected the dolphinarium where the animals were kept. Forensic examinations have been appointed to establish possible additional facts of cruelty to animals,” the Ministry of Internal Affairs said.