No Longer Bottled Up: Stranded Bottle-Nosed Dolphins Out East Get Some Relief As Boat Rescue Team Steers Some to Open Sea at Last, and Hopes to Finish Up Today

By Jennifer Smith And Susana Enriquez, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

Jan. 17–Battling cold, wind and choppy water, a boat rescue team herded at least eight stranded dolphins out of a shallow East Hampton creek yesterday and into Northwest Harbor.

“We’re beyond pleased,” said Charles Bowman, president of the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, which coordinated the rescue with a host of local, state and federal agencies.

It was a triumphant moment in a month when excitement over a group of dolphins’ unusual appearance in East End waters shifted to anxiety after about 20 swam into Northwest Creek and seemed unable to leave.

A similar herding effort on Sunday failed. The dolphins balked at a shallow inlet leading to the harbor and darted back to the creek. Four dolphins died there over the weekend, and another washed up dead on the beach during yesterday morning’s rescue effort, Bowman said. An additional dolphin found swimming listlessly in North Sea Harbor was euthanized Saturday night.

Yesterday, between five to seven dolphins remained behind in Northwest Creek, where observers said the group had first been seen more than a week ago.

The rescue took about three hours and involved eight boats and some 80 people on land and in the water, officials said. “This would be the largest rescue effort of common dolphins in my experience, and I’ve been here 34 years,” said Chuck Hamilton, regional supervisor of the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s natural resources office.

Rescuers used more aggressive tactics than they had on Sunday. Boaters lowered metal pipes into the water and banged on them, deployed a device called a pinger that emits a high frequency noise underwater, revved boat engines and pulled propellers out of the water to stir up spray. Those on shore radioed stray animals’ locations to boaters.

Two to eight dolphins crossed the shallow inlet into the harbor at 11:15 a.m.; between two to five more were herded through more than an hour later.

Water in the creek was about 2 1/2 feet higher than it had been on Sunday, thanks to an incoming weather system that swept water down from Gardiners Bay. That may have made it easier for the dolphins to navigate the 400-foot-swim through the shallow inlet to the harbor, rescuers said.

“It was very encouraging, because now we know the dolphins can go through,” said Connie Merigo, director of rescue and rehabilitation for the New England Aquarium, which helped coordinate the rescue.

Biologists hoped the animals rescued yesterday would swim east and return to the deep offshore waters where they are usually found. “We gave them the chance to survive, and that’s all we can really do,” Bowman said.

Officials said they hoped to shoo the remaining stranded dolphins out today, but that will depend on the weather.

The next 10 days will be critical for the dolphins that remain in the creek, where rescuers said they have run out of fish and may be suffering from deadly stress.

Two more dolphins spotted Monday in Noyac Creek could not be located yesterday, but foundation workers plan to return today for a further look.

Biologists and officials are still not sure why the dolphins came this close to shore, although they think an abundance of prey fish may be one explanation.

The rescue effort

The coming days are considered essential if rescuers are to save most of the dolphins remaining in Northwest Creek. Here’s the three-step plan employed yesterday.

1. Rescuers tried to get dolphins’ attention by banging metal pipes with hammers and using a metal pinger to create underwater noise.

2. Shallow-water boats herded some dolphins through the shallow water of Northwest inlet and into the harbor.

3. Dolphins’ hoped-for route to deep water involves heading into Gardiners Bay, then northeast, past Orient Point, or southeast, pas Montauk Point.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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