On Nov. 16 a juvenile male bottlenose dolphin washed up near Station 10 on Sullivan’s Island.
According to Wayne McFee, the director of the National Ocean Service/ Hollings Marine Lab located at Fort Johnson on James Island, approximately 500 of them live in the estuaries around the Charleston area.
And every year as many as 70 dolphins (wash ashore) on our state’s beaches.
Unfortunately, most of them are dead with the most usual causes being interactions with watercraft or bacterial infections. In 2022, it was announced by Lauren Rust, executive director of the newly formed Lowcountry Marine Mammal Network, that the organization had become the first responder to all stranded dolphins and whales on the South Carolina coast. The LLMN is authorized by the National Marine Fisheries Service and works in partnership with Wayne McFee who has managed the Marine Lab at Fort Johnson for around 30 years. Since August, the Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island have had three dolphins stranded. All were found dead. Two were on the IOP, and this most recent one was on Sullivan’s. When the one at Station 10 was discovered, I received a call from Charleston County Consolidated Dispatch and notified Megan Krzewinski, full time stranding technician with LLMN. My job as a volunteer with this network is to communicate with the stranding technician who is on the way, telling her where she can park or where to access the beach in a truck, giving her the species, length, sex, GPS location, and some preliminary photos while answering questions from and keeping the public and their dogs from touching it and possibly contracting a bacterial infection. I also act as a liaison with our police, fire or public works officials if manpower or heavy equipment needs to be arranged. Lieutenant Stephen Poole and the rest of the Sullivan’s Island Fire and Rescue Squad are always a wonderful resource when large marine mammals or sea turtles need to be lifted for transport or buried on the beach. He responded quickly with a large tractor that could pick up the dolphin and transfer it to Megan’s pickup truck for transport to the Hollings Marine Lab for necropsy. This “animal autopsy” is to study organs, tissues and possibly find a cause of death. In this case there were no obvious external wounds or abnormalities. An early report from Megan was that there were possible pancreatic problems, but the full necropsy results are still pending.
If you ever come across a dolphin or small whale washed up on the beach, dead or alive, please call the SCDNR hotline at 800-922-5431 or the IOP Police Dispatch at 843-886-6522 and report the exact location so that someone can respond. Never push a live animal back into the water or encourage others to do so. It will just restrand and be in worse condition somewhere else. We are blessed to have these magnificent and intelligent animals in our area. It is always special to see them swimming nearby.
