A year ago this month, the world was shocked by images of stranded and dead common dolphins found in four different locations around Falmouth, in Cornwall. This mass stranding was the first of its kind in the county which, over the years, has seen more dead dolphins than any other part of the UK. All told, 26 common dolphins died in June 2008 but, remarkably, dozens of others were rescued and returned safely to the sea.
Now Cornwall Wildlife Trust Marine Strandings Network (CWT MSN) and British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) have released a report which provides a complete picture of the mass stranding. It brings together, for the first time, eyewitness accounts from the four locations and describes the extraordinary rescue by these conservation groups, local agencies and members of the public, some of whom worked for hours in the blazing sunshine to save the survivors and prevent more from stranding and dying.
"So many people were involved in that terrible event," says Marine Strandings Network Coordinator, Jan Loveridge, "and it was astonishing what they achieved. We wanted to document everything that happened, based on their own stories, to acknowledge the dedication, bravery and determination of the volunteers, members of the public and various agencies and services involved. It was truly an amazing demonstration of compassion and teamwork – often with complete strangers working together in harmony to help those poor, stricken dolphins. I think Cornwall can be very proud of them".
Dave Jarvis, a director of BDMLR who coordinated the rescue, remembers the day only too well. "It's not something you would ever forget," he says. "When I first received the report that it was not one, but lots of dolphins in trouble, I got a huge knot in the pit of my stomach. Every time we get a call-out now, the same thing happens and I just pray 'Please don't let it be another one'. I never want to see anything like it again but, equally, it was an enormous achievement to rescue so many dolphins. Everyone who was involved did a fantastic job and we can't thank them enough."
"The report is an amalgamation of the many different views of the strandings and rescue that we've been collecting over the last year", says Jan Loveridge, "and some of the information that's come to light has been quite remarkable. For instance, while the various wildlife agencies and public services have rightly been praised for their commitment and hard work, there are also some unsung heroes from that day. Like the residents at Gillan Creek who rescued five stranded dolphins and stopped others from beaching; or Debs Wallis, a MSN volunteer and her friend who arrived first on the scene and refloated five dolphins that would almost certainly have died; local builders working at Place, who rescued a dolphin that was trying to strand; and Kent and Sarah Harvey who waded chest-high into the water to bring in the dead dolphins from down the creek, which our volunteers then recorded. They were all fantastic!"
BDMLR and the CWT MSN have also been assisting an investigation into the event, funded by DEFRA and conducted by the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (UK CSIP), which is co-ordinated by the Institute of Zoology, London. The CSIP report on the mass stranding is also due to be released shortly and covers not only their findings from examining the dead dolphins, but also the results of their enquiries into possible triggers or causes of the mass stranding.
The BDMLR/CWT MSN report discusses some of the same theories and reaches similar conclusions. "Ultimately, we were unable to uncover the specific event that caused the dolphins to strand, or the exact time that it happened", said Ruth Williams, Marine Conservation officer for CWT. "In most mass strandings related to Naval activity, anti-submarine warfare sonar is considered a likely cause, at least for beaked whales, although the sonar used by the navy in this case finished well before the dolphins came into Porth Creek. But we do think that the naval exercise will have had bearing on the event and it is possible that the second wave of panic, when the dolphins came into Falmouth harbour, may have been caused by naval helicopters which were flying around that time."
"Although we have narrowed it down," Ruth continued, "we would still welcome any eyewitness accounts of the dolphins entering the river system on the night of 8th June or morning of 9th June that might give us more information to help us identify the timing and cause of the initial reaction." She went on to say, "We've gathered a great deal of important information about the behaviour of the dolphins from many of those involved, which might help us in trying to prevent such an event happening in future. With that in mind, we've invited a number of other organisations to talk about how we can work together to protect marine animals. All sorts of human activity in, or around, the sea has an effect on cetaceans and all of us who use the ocean should be thinking about our impact on these animals and the marine environment generally. The sea has become an increasingly noisy place for dolphins, thanks to busy shipping movements, water sports and military activity, and when they come into conflict with what we want to do, they are generally the losers."
The first meeting the CWT MSN and BDMLR have arranged is with the Royal Navy, which has welcomed the opportunity to discuss how they can minimise risk to cetaceans by taking a close look at their response mechanisms and developing some potential areas for future collaboration. "We were delighted with the response by the Royal Navy to our invitation to meet," said Dave Jarvis. "We're keen to strengthen communication between the various parties to try to prevent such events from occurring in future and how best to respond if the worst does occur. These measures need to take into account the needs of the Royal Navy to conduct naval exercises in the interests of national security, but also to make every possible effort to prevent the death of cetaceans around Cornwall."
"We recently had an excellent example of the sort of communication we'd like to develop," adds Jan Loveridge."Last month our Strandings Hotline received a report from a fisherman, forwarded by Falmouth Coastguard, of 20 common dolphins that were seen in the same area where the mass stranding had happened. We heard that Royal Navy helicopters were testing sonar that day and our colleagues at BDMLR immediately contacted RNAS Culdrose to warn them of the risk of another mass stranding. We were all very pleased with the prompt response from the RN, which said that the squadrons had been informed and sonar activity would cease until the dolphins were safely out of the area and the all-clear was given. Realistically, we can't expect the RN to halt every operation when a single dolphin is seen, but it's quite possible that this cooperation helped to prevent a second mass stranding of dolphins."
Dave Jarvis added: "We'll also be inviting the Marine Coastguard Agency to talk about improving two-way communication, especially where noisy events such as power boat races are concerned, as well as making some suggestions to the media about how to assist, rather than hinder rescue operations when trying to report on the event. We all have a duty to these amazing creatures to do our best to protect them and we think the best way to do that is through dialogue and cooperation."
