Since the 90’s, France has regularly experienced episodes of significant dolphin mortality in the Bay of Biscay in winter. On the Atlantic coast, these strandings have reached unprecedented levels since 2016 and are mainly due to accidental captures in fishing gear. Estimated at several thousand dolphins per year, the current rate of mortality due to accidental captures could, in the long term, threaten the population of common dolphins in the North East Atlantic. But knowledge is still too incomplete to understand the environmental and human factors behind these captures and their increase, such as climate change or changes (size, distribution, etc.) of dolphin prey.
