Rescuers who attempted to rescue a stranded porpoise have come under intense criticism from animal rights activists for their methods in returning the unfortunate creature back out to sea.
"The stranded porpoise was found on a beach near Brighstone," said animal rights spokesman, Anna Maltesting. "Stranded porpoises are quiet resilient. They could have rolled it back into the water. Now had it been a harbour porpoise then they would have had to be more careful."
There are two species of stranded porpoise, the lesser spotted stranded porpoise which is hardly seen these days, and the bottle nosed stranded porpoise, which is more common, and can be quite often found on beaches checking discarded bottles for the dregs of beer.
"For some reason, only known to themselves," said Anna. "The rescuers decided to put the stranded porpoise in the back of a Renault Clio and drive it to Brighton. Presumably because spellcheckers often confuse Brighstone with Brighton. This distressed this highly intelligent animal, as they prefer to travel in Japanese cars for their addition reliability."
Once at Brighton an attempt to throw the animal back into the sea was hampered by throngs of interested tourists who wanted to touch the porpoise, and one group who wanted to invite it back to a house party, where they felt it would enjoy the ambience and dancing.
"This additional trauma left the porpoise unable to be reintroduced to the water," said Anna. "Presumably, it wanted to go to the party."
Rescuers abandoned their attempts to return the stranded porpoise to the wild and have sent it to London Zoo for a postmortem and to replace the tuna sandwiches in the staff canteen.
"This treatment of the stranded porpoise is inhumane," said Anna. "It wasn't even dead when they made that decision."
