Mystery as more than 80 dead dolphins found washed up on beach

Marine experts have been left baffled after more than 80 dolphins were found dead on a remote beach.

The 86 stranded dusky dolphins were discovered by a commercial lobster fishermen at Hottentot Bay, about 40 kilometres north of the southwestern coastal town of Luderitz, in Namibia, over the weekend.

Two calves just days old were among the group, which may have been beached after coming to the rescue of a compromised animal according to marine biologist Kolette Grobler.

“We suspect that one of them was injured or got sick and called on the others for help, and this might have caused them to accidentally beach themselves,” Ms Grobler said.

She said the animals were thought to have been dead for about a week before being found, which sadly meant their bodies were too decomposed to be tested for their cause of death.

“But we took water samples to determine if the dolphins ate toxic plankton,” she said.

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Lüderitz Marine Researcht shared a report from the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, detailing the sad news and the “beyond sad” scene that greeted them on Saturday, local time.

Among the 86 dusky dolphins there were two newborns and several immature individuals, all of which were in an advanced state of decay, the report said.

One ‘got itself into trouble’

“They might have become disorientated for some reason and accidentally beached themselves, or they may have rallied around a member of their group that got itself in trouble,” the ministry said.

Dusky dolphins are relatively small and known for their impressive aerial acrobatics. They’re usually found in parts of South America, southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand and at several subantarctic islands.

In southern Africa they are found from central Angola to about Cape Town in South Africa, and from fairly shallow coastal to deep continental shelf waters.

Unfortunately the true cause of the large number of deaths will never be known, and “the heartbreaking images will be hard to forget”, the post read.

They also shared several images of the devastating scene, which revealed a large line of dead bodies surrounded by ocean birdlife.

As well as the dusky dolphin, Namibian waters are also home to the bottlenose dolphin and the Heaviside’s dolphin.

The Namibian Dolphin Project also expressed its sadness at what had occurred in a post to Facebook.

“We have had two previous mass strandings of this species that I can recall. One in Walvis (about 750km further up the coast) and one in Luderitz,” the group said.

They later added in a comment that there was no foul play suspected nor were there any reports of entanglement in the area.

with Reuters

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