A young female bottlenose dolphin was live stranded on 8 September after local people watched her breaching and chasing fish for six hours the previous evening.
The dolphin was observed following fish into bay and breaching from 15.00-21.00 by Nick Scott and Micheline Sheey-Skeffington on the 7 September. They were distressed to find the dolphin dead the following morning.
Joanne O’Brien, of Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, who is carrying out a PhD on small cetaceans in Galway Bay visited the stranding. With the help of IWDG member, Sabina Springer, they carried out post-mortem examination and removed stomach and intestines for dietary analysis.
An image was taken of the dorsal fin for photo-identification in an attempt to match this dolphin to Galway or the Shannon estuary.
Joanne said “the site of the stranding was in very shallow water, screened from Galway Bay by a small island. The dolphin must have got disorientated while chasing fish and could not find her way back to open water”.
Simon Berrow