Whale and Dolphin Strandings Increase in Courtown, Ireland in Recent Days

Whale and dolphin stranding incidents have increased across Ireland.

A common dolphin that washed up dead in Courtown last week is only an indication that such a trend has continued.

Despite the growing number of deaths, local media reports that Irish authorities have not yet identified the exact causes of deaths of the marine animals.

However, related incidents from other countries may hold the clue.

Similar cases of marine animal stranding incidents affecting whales, dolphins, and seals have also been reported in coastal areas of the northern Atlantic Ocean, including in the United States and France.

In recent years, these deaths have been attributed by scientists and concerned authorities to vessel strikes or collisions, fish net entanglements, plastic pollution, and even climate change.

Courtown Dolphin Stranding

(Photo : Photo by NICOLAS TUCAT/AFP via Getty Images)
TOPSHOT - A dead dolphin lies on a beach of the Atlantic Ocean near Lacanau, southwestern France, on March 22, 2019. - Over 1,100 beached dolphins have been recorded on the French Atlantic coast, mainly in the Vendee, Charente-Maritime and Gironde deprtments, according to the Pelagis Observatory, a marine mammal and seabird research laboratory based in La Rochelle. "We have dolphins arriving on the coast with marks, we can prove that it's accidental capture but we can not detect what fishing gear has contributed to this." We need to know exactly what it's happening", said Willy Dabin of the Pelagis Observatory.

In Ireland, the latest stranding involved a common dolphin in the village of Courtown in County Wexford, according to a report by Ireland's Independent news on Wednesday, April 12.

Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) Strandings Officer, Stephanie Levesque, stated the organization has received multiple stranding reports in recent days, wherein common dolphin strandings being the most common.

Levesque adds further strandings are expected during the winter months, but warned the incidents are on the rise since they are above-average compared in previous years.

Also Read: Dead Dolphin Beached in New Jersey Brings Tally to 6 Since Mid-Feb

Common Dolphin Deaths

There have been over 100 reports of all marine animal species in 2023, which became victims of these events and most of them consists the common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) species.

The peak stranding period is between the winter months of December and February when these reports typically comes in.

However, they are higher than expected and is way ahead than last year, the IWDG officer added.

The local news outlet reported the IWDG cannot determine the exact cause of death of the Courtown dolphin and many of the animals that suffered the same fate in recent months.

This challenge is mainly because the organization reportedly lacks the fund to carry out post-mortems, also called necropsy or animal autopsy.

Whale and Dolphin Strandings

Entanglement from fishing gear, including nets, is the world's leading threat for whales and dolphins and is responsible for at least 300,000 deaths annually, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which said inaction and lack of mitigation efforts to resolve the issue are causing these events to occur.

In the United States, a wave of whale and dolphin strandings has also been reported in multiple coastal areas nationwide, including in California and New Jersey, wherein local officials and community members blamed offshore wind farms.

As opposed to the common culprits like vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglement, wind turbines have been blamed by the Garden State, which recently signed a collective petition against these massive structures erected off coastal areas.

Meanwhile, California whale deaths have been linked to ship strikes in recent months, based on necropsy conducted by local officials, as reported by Patch Media and a story also covered by Nature World News earlier this week.