Summer is here, baby, which means it’s just about time for beachgoers the world over to start doing a bunch of weird shit by the ocean. Before anyone can try to run across the Atlantic in a plastic bubble again, or go drunkenly off-roading on the Gulf Coast, one man in Guangdong, China, has already set this year’s bar for aquatic debauchery real, real high—finding a dolphin stranded on the shore, picking it up, and just walking off the beach with it like he owned the thing.
According to the South China Morning Post, the guy stumbled across the dolphin on Guangdong’s Hailing Island, where it had washed up onto the sand and appeared to be dying. As you can see in the video, instead of, say, calling for help, or nudging it back into the water, the dude apparently just picked it up, slung it over his shoulder, and took it on a jaunt down the shoreline while someone filmed him.
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A local fishery official told the Morning Post that bystanders saw the guy carry the dolphin all the way to his car, hop in, and drive away, presumably bringing the poor, defenseless mammal with him. The cops are now hunting for the dolphin-stealing reprobate—who they think might be a tourist—and plan on prosecuting him for walking off the beach with a protected species.
Who the hell knows what the guy could’ve done with his captive. There’s an outside chance he was trying to get it some help—to rush it to the closest vet, or something—but judging by the smirk on the dude’s face, the way he slung the dolphin over his shoulder like a duffel bag, and calmly sashayed down the beach, that doesn’t seem likely.
Maybe he’s got a serious aquarium, and this was the only chance he had to add a dolphin to his collection. Perhaps he’d just seen The Shape of Water—the two might be lounging in a bathtub as we speak, gearing up for a sultry, interspecies love-fest. Or maybe this guy’s just an asshole. We’ll let you decide.
Hopefully the cops manage to track him down, and we can get to the bottom of exactly what the hell is going on here. Until then, we can take some small comfort in the fact that, at the very least, he didn’t use the thing to help him shotgun a beer.
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