Dolphin rescued from creek released
Published: June 26, 2007
A wayward bottlenose dolphin is back in open water after an animal rescue team with SeaWorld Orlando relocated it this afternoon.
The young female dolphin had become stranded in a shallow creek off Turnbull Bay near the New Smyrna Beach municipal stadium.
Scott Gearhart, SeaWorld staff veternarian, said the dolphin had swum into the creek during a high tide a couple of weeks ago, but couldn’t make its way back to the Intracoastal Waterway, possibly because the water was too shallow for her to make her way.
An animal rescue team started searching for her at about 10 a.m. today and finally netted her at about 1 p.m. Then the group brought her to nearby Mosquito Lagoon, just a couple of miles south, to be released.
She was in generally good health and had been able to feed on fish in the creek, but needed to be relocated to an open waterway, Gearhart said.
Before she was released, the dolphin, which measured about 96 inches long and weighed approximately 418 pounds, was fitted with a radio tag so that researchers with the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute will be able to track her for the next couple of months.
The rescue team released her to greet a pod of dolphins already in the waterway. “We’re optimistic that she’ll be fine,” Gearhart said.
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