Scientists say an unprecedentedly bad year for beached dolphins on Cape Cod might have to do with warming waters changing the availability of the animals' food, per the AP. The Massachusetts peninsula has a long history of marine mammal strandings, partially because of dramatic changes in the tide that sometimes trap wayward dolphins if they swim too close to shore. But this year has been particularly bad: The International Fund for Animal Welfare said Thursday it has responded to 342 live, stranded dolphins this year, five times more than its annual average of 67.
An already bad year got worse earlier this month when the organization was inundated with calls about beached dolphins. More than 50 of the animals were stranded on multiple beaches and waterways in the span of a week, the organization said. The massive number of strandings has stretched the group's resources and supplies, said the organization's Brian Sharp. Scientists are still trying to determine what is causing the strandings, but they have noticed that the small fish the dolphins eat in high numbers have been swimming close to the shore, he said.
The dolphins seem to be following that food source and getting themselves in jeopardy, Sharp said. "Any effect of climate change on ocean temperature, salinity, is going to affect the prey resource of the fish," he said. "That as part of the food web is going to have kind of that ripple, that cascade effect throughout the food web, which eventually leads to marine mammals." While the factors are complex, a changing climate is clearly driving prey and predators to new areas at times of the year they were not previously expected, said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, executive director of conservation group Whale and Dolphin Conservation North America.
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"We have had noticeable unseasonably warm temperatures on land lately around Cape Cod to remind us we are facing changes in the climate," she says. "But those changes don't stop at the shoreline. They are being felt in the ocean, too." Of the 342 stranded dolphins, 293 were able to be released back into the wild. More than 90 additional dolphins were found dead upon stranding. This year's strandings included a mass stranding event of more than 100 dolphins in the summer that rescuers said was the largest event of its kind in recorded US history.
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