At the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic a blue shark died after it was pulled out from water and onto the beach in front of the hotel and tortured to death by a group of tourists and lifeguards. The shark was killed in the process of being used as a prop to take selfies with. Shockingly, the lifeguards, involved in the act, are employed by the Hotel.
Seven tourists saw the shark struggling so instead of helping him get back out to the ocean the cruel, sociopathic group pulled the shark out of the water, tied him up, jammed a life preserver in his mouth and tortured the fish by posing for a selfies. It is believed the life preserver was jammed into the mouth of the shark in an apparent attempt to keep him from biting them. They then used the shark as a prop and took more “selfies” with him. One man can even be seen holding the dying creature’s tail fin in the air as he posed for a photo.
A video of the incident, which took place on the beaches of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, shows a group of men, including lifeguards from the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, run into shallow water with ropes and a small fishing net to capture the blue shark
The following is the Horrifying footage:
The large blue shark (Prince glauca) died an excruciating painful death.
Sharks keep our largest and most important ecosystem healthy. Our existence, in part, is dependent upon theirs. Sharks have sat atop the oceans’ food chain, keeping our seas healthy for 450 million years
The incident is the latest from a disturbing trend of people treating animals as props for holiday snaps.
Just 3 months ago in Argentina an endangered baby dolphin dies after swimmers pass it around for selfies.
An endangered baby dolphin was killed on a beach in Argentina in February 2016 after the animal was plucked from the water and passed around by beachgoers for petting and photos.
The incident, which took place at the beach resort town of Santa Teresita, has drawn wide condemnation from animal lovers and activists, including the Argentine Wildlife Foundation (AWF), which released a statement urging people to return dolphins encountered near the shore to ocean waters.
La Plata dolphins — also known as Franciscana dolphins — are only found in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, and fewer than 30,000 of them remain in the wild, the foundation said. The only type of river dolphin to inhabit saltwater, Franciscana dolphins are categorized as “vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.
The IUNC notes that the main threats to the dolphins are gill nets, which are known to drown, injure or attach to marine mammals, causing extreme fatigue, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
But as it turns out, curious swimmers and other beachgoers are also a top threat.
Video footage of last week’s incident shows the animal being scooped up by a man and quickly surrounded by a curious mob eager to touch the animal.
The miniature dolphin, no more than a few feet long, is eventually left to die in the mud, where it can be seen lying motionless.
At no point in the footage does it appear that anyone in the crowd intervened or attempted to return the animal to the water.
“The potential for recovery of this species is very low,” the AWF said. “The Franciscan, like other dolphins, can not long remain above water. It has a very thick and greasy skin that provides warmth, so the weather will quickly cause dehydration and death.”
NOAA describes La Plata dolphins as “extremely shy and evasive by nature” and notes that what little is known about them is “surrounded by superstition.”
With video and photos of the animal’s death circulating online, the reaction has been furious.
The sickening display is unbelieveable in this day and age of awareness
Several years ago Chinese Tourists Snap Selfies with Dying Dolphin
Tourists who stumbled onto a gravely injured dolphin while swimming off the coast of Sanya City in the Chinese province of Hainan are being blasted on local social networks for manhandling the distressed animal and posing with it for pictures in lieu of alerting wildlife authorities.
The dolphin later died of “excessive bleeding” at a nearby marine park, according to Shanghai Daily.
POOR EXCUSES FOR MEN. ANIMAL CRUELTY IS ONE OF THE MOST UNATTRACTIVE QUALITIES A MAN CAN HAVE.
Experts believe the dolphin may have collided with a fishing boat, as evidenced by the injury to its tail.
A group of men who found the stranded dolphin proceeded to lift it out of the water and take photos of themselves, which were later posted to the microblogging service Sina Weibo.
Users were outraged, saying the photos, exhibiting a basic disregard for life, shook their faith in China.
One user, who noted that dolphins were highly evolved mammals with “an IQ only a little lower than humans,” contrasted that by saying the “people in the pictures are worse than pigs.”
The tourists have yet to be identified in the press, but it will unlikely lead to any charges as China does not currently have any laws on the books that protect non-endangered species.
Woman Drags Swan Out Of Lake By Its Wing For A Selfie; the swan later dies.
March 2016
A Bulgarian tourist visiting Macedonia was photographed pulling a swan by its wing out of the water of Lake Ohrid as a prop for a “selfie”
Resident Nake Batev said he saw the woman roughly handling the bird: “I was just walking by when I noticed her posing and grabbing for her friends to take the picture,” Batev said to The Huffington Post. “It was just a second and in the next moment I was running and yelling for her to let go.” He said the woman went back to her friends after the incident and walked away. 
Batev claims that the swan swam away after the incident, although other outlets claim that the bird was killed.
Swans can often be aggressive toward humans, but those in this particular lake are used to interaction with humans and are fairly calm.
This incident occurred less than a month after a small dolphin was killed in Buenos Aires after a selfie-crazed mob dragged it out of the water and passed it along. Another incident occurred in Florida when a man pulled a shark out of the water by its tail for a selfie.
Filed under: Corporate Cruelty, Cruelty to Animals Tagged: @HRHPuntaCana, Cruelty to animals, customer_care@hardrock.com, HAMISH DODDS President & CEO, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Punta Cana, Lifeguards, Phone: +1 809-731-0000, Selfie, Sharks, Tourists
