Dolphin stranded on Little Compton beach succumbs

Marine mammal euthanized when it became clear it would not survive

By Ted Hayes
Posted 1/9/23

Rescuers tried, but ultimately were unable, to save a deep-water long-beaked dolphin that was found beached along the rock Chace Point shoreline Saturday afternoon.

Little Compton resident Emily …

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Dolphin stranded on Little Compton beach succumbs

Marine mammal euthanized when it became clear it would not survive

Posted

Rescuers tried, but ultimately were unable, to save a deep-water long-beaked dolphin that was found beached along the rock Chace Point shoreline Saturday afternoon.

Little Compton resident Emily Medeiros first spotted the stranded dolphin alive but in distress while on her shoreline walk from Town Landing. She contacted Mystic Aquarium, whose volunteer Little Compton first responders attended to the animal until a veterinarian and technicians arrived from Connecticut.  By then, darkness had set in and the team, assisted by locals, worked by headlamp to gently position the dolphin for examination.  After the veterinarian determined that the female would not survive either a return to the ocean or rehabilitation, the animal was euthanized. The team of professionals and volunteers then removed the remains from the rocky beach for a necropsy in Mystic.

Sarah Callan, manager of Animal Rescue at Mystic Aquarium, said that the animal was a long-beaked common dolphin that thrives in deep water off the Northeast coast. That this female became stranded in such shallow water was consistent with serious illness, she said. While no cause of death was readily apparent, pneumonia is often fatal in these marine mammals.

The Mystic Aquarium depends upon its network of volunteer first responders in shoreline communities to assist in animal rescues of this type. If you are interested in training for this role, see www.mysticaquarium.org/arp-first-responder-training/.

— With reports by John Barylick

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