Less than a week after a dolphin carcass was found in the Shrewsbury River, another one of our favorite sea mammals was found dead at the Jersey Shore Saturday night. Surprisingly, the Jersey Shore water seems to have nothing to do with their deaths.
The Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine says that the dead dolphin was found in the Navesink River, near Victory Park in Rumson, N.J., according to the Associated Press. The carcass was badly decayed, which means it probably died months ago.
The MMSC believes that both dolphins were part of a pod of 16 that spent half of 2008 in the two New Jersey rivers, but an official determination has not been made in either case. If they were part of that group, it would mean five pod members have died.
Animal rescuers had been fighting to remove the 16 wayward dolphins from the river and return them to the salt water of the ocean, while federal wildlife officials decided to leave them alone unless they appeared to be in imminent danger.
We're thinking two dead bodies probably means they're in imminent danger. But then again, we're not dolphin experts.
