Over a 100 dolphins needed rescue

ONE of the biggest mammal rescue operations ever mounted in the UK saved more than seven beached dolphins on Monday, and led up to 80 more into safe waters.
But at least 26 of the animals perished in the shallow waters of Porth Creek on the Roseland, and experts are now trying to find an explanation for the country's biggest mass stranding since 20 pilot whales beached on the east coast 30 years ago.
The alarm was raised at about 8.30am by gardeners working in Froe. Conrad Birnie said: “You never see dolphins here and they were just floating on the surface. We saw one in the corner of the creek and counted 11 more and one live one.”
The men alerted the Coastguard Service, which in turn alerted the other authorities.
Among the dozens of staff and volunteers who took part in the rescue were people from the RNLI, British Divers Marine Life Rescue, Cornwall Wildlife Trust, Falmouth Marine School and the National Trust, as well as fire crews, harbour staff, local boat owners and members of the public.
National Trust area warden Julian Crewe, who has 25 years' experience of working on the Roseland, said: “I have never seen anything like this before. It was dreadful and extremely upsetting. We sometimes find dead dolphins that have been caught in fishing nets, but this was on a completely different scale.
“In the morning there was a great sense of urgency about what we were doing to try to get the live dolphins out of the creek before the tide turned and they became stuck in the mud.
“We were also worried about another pod near Place. We first had to look at the sick and dying. Then we managed to get the live dolphins out of Froe and they seemed to call the other pod near Place who followed them out to sea.”
The operation to recover the dead mammals and return the rest of the 100-strong pod to open waters took all day.
RNLI helmsman Dave Nicholl said: “I can't say I've seen such a terrible scene as that which confronted us when we first arrived in the creek. It was carnage. RNLI crew training is extremely thorough, but this took all our skills and more besides.”
Now vets are trying to find a reason for the mass strandings. They could have come inshore in search of food, or been frightened by a killer whale. Another theory is that the dolphins' natural echo-location skills had become confused by marine sonar activity.
Post-mortem examinations have already taken place on some of the dolphins, but these show the animals were healthy and well-nourished.
The dolphins were striped dolphins, closely related to the common dolphin. Up to eight feet long, they usually live in pods of up to 100 in tropical and subtropical regions in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans

24 of these dolphins died whilst beached and 2 other dolphins had to be put down by a vet, making the total deaths 26! 100 dolphins had beached themselves, because it is said that the military had been fireing live bombs earlier that day and had also been using radiowaves which dolphins use to locate food and each other. it is said that it is the radiowaves which confused and disorentated the dolphins which made them beach themselves. all were healthy animals and 26 of these precious animals lost their lives for WHAT?

stupid isnt it.

i think that its timethe forces payed for hurting defenceless sea life, there is always people saying that a lot of animals in the water are nearly extinct.