Volunteers retrieve unusual common dolphin

Update - January 2007

The pathologists who examined this common dolphin were also intrigued and have frozen the tailstock and will be sending it up to the Institute of Zoology in London to be X-rayed. We’re interested to know whether the deformity was congenital, a growth defect or whether the tail was damaged by a traumatic event such as entanglement in rope.

16 December 2006

Marine Strandings Network volunteers were called out to an unusual common dolphin at Peter's Point, on Gwithian Beach.

The male dolphin showed no obvious major damage but it did have an unusual tail stock (below), much shorter than it should be, with two crease marks on the underside.

The body and fins had many old, healed wounds and scars and some narrow fresh cuts on its tail and fins that were suggestive of net damage.

The sides of the body were covered in rake marks (below right), which are caused by the teeth of other cetaceans. The distance between the rake marks was about 5 mm and this is the tooth spacing for common dolphins. It's therefore most likely that these were caused by other animals in this dolphin's pod.

The animal was measured and photographed for our strandings database and a decision was taken to try to retrieve it for post-mortem.

The nearest vehicle access was at Gwithian Towans and so a retrieval team was scrambled and the body was carried along the beach on a purpose-made stretcher as the tide retreated.

After a long haul the dolphin was finally placed in our trailer and has now been taken for post-mortem. We await the results.

More than 100 dead stranded common dolphins have been recorded by the Network in Cornwall so far this year.

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