Eight dolphins have died after being stranded on a beach in New Jersey, a rehabilitation center said.
According to the New Jersey-based Marine Mammal Stranding Center (MMSC), the pod of eight dolphins were caught in a “mass stranding event” in the state’s southernmost city, Sea Isle City, on Tuesday morning.
By the time rescuers arrived, two of the dolphins had died. The other six were “rapidly deteriorating”, the MMSC said on Facebook.
An onlooker, Tim Ramsey, told CBS: “Six big dolphins [were] flapping around on the beach and I was kind of stunned for 30 seconds or so.”
Half a dozen officers and rescuers spent hours pouring seawater on to the dolphins, to no avail.
“The remaining six dolphins were assessed by our veterinarian and their conditions were rapidly deteriorating,” MMSC said.
“The decision was made to humanely euthanize the dolphins to prevent further suffering, as returning them to the ocean would have only prolonged their inevitable death.
“All eight dolphins have been transported to the NJ state laboratory for immediate necropsies. We share in the public’s sorrow for these beautiful animals, and hope that the necropsies will help us understand the reason for their stranding.”
The dolphin deaths come less than a week after two dolphins stranded and died on a different beach in New Jersey.
According to MMSC, an adult dolphin was dead by the time rescuers arrived. Rescuers rescued a calf but after it was transported to a clinic, a veterinary exam determined that it was in an “extremely weakened condition and could not survive”. Doctors then made the decision to euthanize.
As of last month, at least nine dead whales had washed up on the New Jersey coast this year, deaths described by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) as “unusual mortality events”.
Some have attributed the deaths to wind farms and turbines being built along the New Jersey coast. According to such claims, noise created by offshore wind survey work disrupts cetacean navigation systems.
Earlier this year, a conservation non-profit, Clean Ocean Action, demanded an “immediate and fully transparent investigation into the recent whale deaths by federal agencies” and called for a “hard stop on all existing offshore wind industry geotechnical and development activities”.
Scientists have disputed such claims.
“There is no evidence to support speculation that noise resulting from wind development-related site characterization surveys could … cause mortality of whales, and no specific links between recent large whale mortalities and currently ongoing surveys,” said Noaa.
