Image: Wikipedia
In 1865, the French government began paying people to kill dolphins in the Mediterranean Sea, offering twenty-five francs for each animal. A major review of bounty programmes, published in 2026, identifies it as the first recorded dolphin bounty. In Italy in 1889, the government paid for each dolphin killed and authorised experimental use of bomb guns. Olden and colleagues and published in the journal npj Biodiversity on 30 May 2026. Drawing on eight centuries of evidence, the team found at least 283 species targeted across 449 programmes in 60 countries. Marine animals were a small minority, around 8.5 per cent of the species, which makes the dolphin bounties unusual. Fraud happens: In Hanoi in 1902, hunters cut the tails off rats and released them to breed, and in colonial Delhi people reportedly bred cobras for the reward. Of 260 animal species once subject to bounties, 22 are now classed as at risk or extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and another 16 are near threatened. The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, is the most famous casualty, driven to extinction in 1936 with a bounty as a primary contributor. The 1865 French dolphin bounty shows how long this debate has been running.
Because fishing communities believed dolphins were emptying the sea of fish and tearing their nets, officials introduced the reward to protect fisheries,. Because sources in languages other than English are not fully represented, the authors caution that their count is conservative. The review draws five lessons, and several apply to any bounty: Motives vary: Programmes have been launched for economic, ecological and public health reasons, and fisheries protection is one of the economic motives.
The word “perceived” matters here, because the review describes these bounties as targeting reported or believed damage, which was not always measured or proven. The story is an example of how people have tried to solve economic problems by paying citizens to kill wildlife, and of how often such schemes have produced consequences that nobody planned for. Here is what happened and what history teaches. The researchers explain that perceived threats to local economies drove the bounty. Fishers saw dolphins as competitors for dwindling fish and as a danger to expensive nets. The review lists the dolphins in question as the species found in the Mediterranean, the common dolphin, Risso’s dolphin, the striped dolphin and the common bottlenose dolphin. Image: Dolphin Biology and Conservation France was not alone. The review also records dolphin bounties in Italy, Croatia, and Japan. Protecting fisheries was the common thread, the same motive that led to bounties on seals, pelicans, cormorants and even bald eagles in other parts of the world. The dolphin bounty appears in the first global assessment of species bounty programmes, led by Julian D. Mammals made up just over a third of the species, birds just over a third, and fish about one in nine. Design varies: Some schemes had clear goals and monitoring, while others simply counted kills. Unintended consequences are common: Bounties can kill non-target species or even help the target species recover its numbers. Public opinion shifts: Support often fades as animal welfare concerns grow, and one Australian pelican bounty ended abruptly after public outcry. The review notes a striking reversal over time. The authors do not claim there is a single answer about the future of bounties. Supporters see them as one useful tool, while critics say they can be costly, ineffective and a distraction from deeper causes such as habitat loss, pollution and climate change. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.
The French scheme worked like a classic bounty. The government offered a fixed cash payment, twenty-five francs, to anyone who killed a dolphin in the Mediterranean. The aim was to reduce dolphin numbers and, with them, the harm that fishing communities blamed on the animals. The review titled ‘ Society’s struggle with unwanted species: what centuries of history reveal about species bounty programs ’ documents the scheme does not report how many dolphins were killed in France, so the scale of the slaughter remains unclear.