A dolphin that became stranded on a south Dublin beach has died, despite a multi-agency attempt to rescue it and refloat it out at sea.
The large fully-grown male dolphin which weighed around 100kg and was around 2.3 metres long was found stranded on Sandymount Strand today at around 10am.
A team from the Irish Coast Guard and Dublin Zoo responded and the dolphin was taken with a Garda escort to the deeper waters of Sandycove beach further south, where it began swimming back out to sea.
However, as the dolphin passed the East Pier in Dún Laoghaire, where hundreds of people had gathered to watch, it again stranded itself on rocks and died.
It was then reloaded on to a boat and it has now been taken to UCD in Dublin where a post-mortem examination will be carried out.
Launch authority manager at the RNLI in Dún Laoghaire Kevin Byrne said such incidents in Dublin are relatively rare, but he said he had heard of two more strandings today, of a porpoise in Dalkey and another dolphin at Kilmore Quay.
"There was quite a crowd at Sandymount and quite a crowd here on the East Pier in Dun Laoghaire," he said. People could be heard cheering at the dolphin swam past the pier.
"There were a lot of agencies involved. In fairness to everybody they did the best they could. The coastguard, Dublin Zoo and I think the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group. Our guys were out on a training exercise and they were tasked to the scene by the Irish Coast Guard."
"It was quite a large male," explains James Traynor, who was part of the RNLI boat crew. "We got our boat alongside and we assisted bringing the dolphin back into the water."
"We always have hope. We had hope when we saw his fins start to flap but as soon as we got about 100 metres from the beach, we saw him heading towards the pier. Then we started mobilising more units to come and meet us at the pier."
He said he had been involved in assisting dogs in the water but had never helped with a wild animal rescue like this before.
Frank O'Sullivan, a vet from Dublin Zoo, said the dolphin had been struggling when it was found in Sandymount and might have been there for a while.
"We did a vet assessment of the dolphin and it was quite good. We were quite hopeful.
"We wanted to attempt a refloating, so we took some bloods from it and gave it medication for pain relief and brought it out to the deepest part of the water that we could get it to and that's where it was refloated."
He said they now hope to learn more from the bloods and the post-mortem examination.
"That's the bigger picture. Why did the animal strand? We hope to see what the cause of death was. So for instance was it related to echolocation issues? Did it get lost? Was it related to any disease such as parasitism? Is there any evidence of other toxins in the animal, so we can use them as sentinels if you like, for the deeper ocean perspective."
He said the evidence would be added to similar post-mortem information to tell them more about the marine ecosystem.
