Fears for four dolphins kept in dirty 30ft swimming pool

Animal campaigners aretrying to rescue four dolphins being kept in a filthy swimming pool just 30ft square by 13ft deep. The bottlenoses, two male and two female, were found by a British man working in Egypt who was alerted by their distinctive cry.



He found them shielded from view by a tarpaulin in the back yard of the tatty villa in Hurghada on the Red Sea coast. The water is so filthy the 6ft dolphins disappear from view when they dive. And they swim in their own excrement because the filtration system is unable to cope.

Concerned Egyptian wildlife campaigners are desperately trying to help the new dolphins, which they fear may die if they are not rescued. The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association have taken up the case.



HEPCA says the villa's owner claims the dolphins were caught in Japanese waters and not illegally in the Red Sea. Pete Johnson, 47, from Lancashire, who found them, said: "The water is disgusting. The dolphins are forced to live in their mess and close to one another."