Dolphin strandings on Cape Cod at an all-time high, and experts believe it has to do with food

CAPE COD – The waters off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts are teeming with life, especially dolphins. More than ever, these animals are getting stranded on the shore, with the number spiking this year.

Most dolphin strandings on earth

“We typically get about 68 live dolphins per year, currently, as I’m sitting here today, we have had 342,” said Brian Sharp with the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Sharp said the southeast corner of the Cape Cod bay has more dolphin strandings than anywhere on the planet. 

IFAW and their volunteers work to rescue these animals, and sometimes that means driving them around in a mobile dolphin unit. It’s a large shipping truck with padding on the inside. Typically, they release the dolphins off the coast of Provincetown because it has easy access to deeper water, and the IFAW team can get their equipment to the shore. 

The Wellfleet Fire Department was called to help during one incident. Luke Fancy and his crew used their equipment to trickle water over the animals.

“We had to cover our hands over the blowhole because I guess if you get a lot of water in the blowhole you can actually drown the dolphin,” said Fancy.

The animals were caught in a marsh near a road that Fancy says often floods.

Stranding involves food

“And in that flooded water you could see a ton of bait fish,” added Fancy.

Sharp believes the stranding spike has to do with food. Fisherman tell them, prey fish for dolphins and whales are showing up closer to shore and in much greater numbers.

“The difference between low tide and high tide can be 9 to sometimes 12 feet, so an animal is chasing these fish into 12 feet of water, six hours later that animal is high and dry,” explains Sharp.

Of the 342 dolphins that stranded, they have saved all but 13.

Mike Sullivan

Mike Sullivan is a multimedia journalist for WBZ-TV.