Two dolphins were recovered by the IWDG from Co Kerry today for post-mortem examination. thisfollows two more recovered on Saturday, one from north Donegal and one from Inverin, Co Galway. This is part of a contract extension the IWDG in collaboration with the RVL Cork and GMIT won from the Marine Institute and NPWS to continue to recover stranded dolphins for necropsy. we are contracted to recovered an additional 16 carcasses on top of the 24 already recovered and examined fromJune to December 2017.
Logistics is everything. A slab of rock assisted Simon and Ronan Berrow lifting the Inverin dolphin into the IWDG jeep on a strecher while there is nothing like a mini-digger to make even lighter work of lifting into the jeep for transport to Cork RVL.
The continued success of this projects relies on the hard working IWDG Stranding Network to report stranded animals in a timely fashion. As the sample size increases the knowledge on causes of death of dolphins and porpoise in Ireland builds too.
Kerry Co Co exhume a common dolphin for IWDG
Following a report by Oonagh Duggan of a common dolphin stranded at Wine Strand in Smerwick Harbour, Co Kerry, IWDG travelled down today to recover it for post-mortem examination.
Photos: Oonagh Duggan
On arriving at the site we found no dolphin but found fresh large tyre tracks – only one source of these – a digger !
Enquiries at a local house, owned by Eoin Slattery and his family informed us that yes Kerry County Council were down about an hour earlier ….
Only one solution, phone up Kerry County Council and ask them if they will dig it up for IWDG
And they did …..
Attaching rope to the tail of a common dolphin after verty careful exhumation. Pictures by Frances Bermingham
Photos by Frances Bermingham
The carcass will be transported to Cork Regional Vet Lab for post-mortem examination to establish the cause of death as part of an EMMF funded project conttracted to IWDG by the Marine Institute and the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The IWDG are expecting a lot of stranded dolphins to be found andreported over the next few weeks. Please let us know if you find any whales and dolphinds washed up on any coast as soon as posiible to facilitate recovery of a sample of these strandings.
The IWDG would like to thank Johnny Walsh and Tom O'Connor of Kerry County Council and Sean O'Shea for his very careful exhumation and Angela and Gearoid in the Dingle office.
Dr Simon Berrow