Tourism Grading Council of
South Africa
Wonderlings
B&B
Rooi Els
Western Cape, South
Africa
Tel/Fax: +27 (0)28 273
8961
JENNY'S
GALLERY
Dolphin rescue in Rooi Els - 2 March 2010
Around 09:00 Stewart Waddell
put out word that 5 dolphins were stranded on
the beach. 15
minutes later we were at the slipway with about 10 other folk who
had responded immediately to the SOS. There was a gale force wind
that, at
times, threatened to up-end us. The sea was VERY cold
after days of an
unrelenting south-easter.
The volunteers
divided up so that they could attend to the dolphins as quickly as
possible. Some were disorientated - in the photos you'll see Koos and
Chris
Harrison trying to right one dolphin that was lying on its
back in shallow water.
It's blowhole was full of sand and, of
course, it couldn't breathe. They managed
to right the dolphin
and it immediately started to clear it's airway. Holding it
upright for awhile to allow reorientation, it was then gently guided
out to sea.
In the meantime, others were struggling with a dolphin that
was bleeding
profusely, though the blood was washed away so
quickly it was difficult to know
precisely where it came from.
There were quite a lot of abrasions, probably
caused by sharp
rocks. You can see the blood in the water in one of the photos.
Because of the very low tide and the barrier of sharp rocks, this one
took the
longest to get back into the sea. It was calling, in the
way the dolphins do, and
the others responded. They were stressed
and kept trying to reach their friend
- so a few souls
braved the cold water and kept them away from the shore, while
the group tending it managed to guide it out to sea.
By 10h15 all
the dolphins were back in the sea and were kept there for an hour
by volunteers who hit loudly on the surface of the water each time
they tried to
come back. Once they were all together, they
remained about 50 metres
offshore, swimming back and forth,
parallel to the beach. We could see that some
of them were
getting stronger by the way they were swimming. But a diver who
swam with the pod, reported that at least one of them was weak and in
poor shape.
What was puzzling to us was that they just stayed there for
hours - neither
trying to go out to sea, nor trying to beach
again. We were soon to discover why -
About 7pm the body of a pregnant
female was discovered washed up on the
rocks. The next morning,
there was one more. Besides abrasions and stress, no
other cause
of death could be established.
The remaining 3 dolphins, having stayed
with their friends to the last, quietly
slipped away . .
.
