11 Bottlenose Dolphins Rescued In Brewster

BREWSTER – In what the nonprofit called an “unprecedented stranding,” the International Fund for Animal Welfare led an effort to save 14 bottlenose dolphins Monday at Linnell Landing.

IFAW said in a statement that efforts to save 11 of the dolphins continued into Tuesday morning. Three other dolphins reportedly died during what the nonprofit called “the largest bottlenose dolphin mass stranding in the Northeast region.”

Kira Kasper, a biologist and animal responder for IFAW, said the agency has been busy in recent weeks responding to reports of stranded dolphins.

“In just the last two weeks, we have responded to 26 dolphin strandings, both common and bottlenose, so we have been on high alert and monitoring their movements closely,” she said in the statement.

The 11 rescued dolphins were tagged for tracking Monday, according to the statement. Through the tags, IFAW staff found that the dolphins had restranded early Tuesday morning, this time at Lieutenant Island in Wellfleet. 

Staff and volunteers worked to extract the dolphins from “treacherous mud” and provide treatment before they were transported to Herring Cove in Provincetown, where they were safely released. 

The Cape’s “shallow waters, complex tidal movements and sandbars” make dolphin strandings commonplace in the region, IFAW says. But Kasper in the statement said this summer has been an “unprecedented” one for dolphin strandings. She said IFAW has responded to 175 live strandings since the end of June, a figure that is 2.5 times the nonprofit’s annual average.