Overview
- Conservation groups photographed Toñi this week with about ten pellet-like impacts on her left dorsal fin and said some projectiles may be lodged in the tissue.
- Spain’s Environment Ministry ordered a formal inquiry and has asked Portuguese authorities to assist while investigators assess cause and timing of the injuries.
- The WeWhale Association and Iberian Orca Guardians say they had photographed Toñi uninjured only weeks earlier, which indicates the wounds are recent.
- Toñi is an estimated 60-year-old matriarch of a critically endangered Iberian orca subpopulation that monitoring groups say numbers under 40 animals.
- Officials warn the wounds raise infection and survival risks for the pod and say harming a protected marine mammal would be a serious crime that could trigger legal action.