Dolphin washed up on Knott End beach

An animal rescue took place in Knott End this morning after a dolphin washed up.
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The dolphin, believed to be a striped dolphin, was found on the beach at the top of Clarence Avenue this morning.

It is believed it could have been stranded for around seven hours before being rescued.

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Knott End resident Sam Lancaster, 47, was among those who saw the dolphin washed up on the sand at around 8.45am.
She said: “One of my friends had rung the coastguard just as we dropped our kids off at the bus stop.

Picture by Sam LancasterPicture by Sam Lancaster
Picture by Sam Lancaster


“The coastguard arrived soon afterwards and they got him into a sledge with towels and moved him. They took it off the beach and went down the road to the jetty, and then took it down to the bottom of the jetty and took it to the water’s edge to see how it would do and if it was going to be happy in the water.


“The dolphin was just swimming around in circles and seemed quite disorientated, and it kept coming back up on the beach, so the coastguards got in the water and kept it upright.


“The lady from the BDMLR (British Divers Marine Life Rescue) arrived and she got straight in the water and got one of the coastguards to take it into deeper water, and they were rocking it. Then off it went, and they were splashing the water to keep the dolphin from coming back on the beach again.”


She said the dolphin was back in the water by 9.15am.

Picture by Sam LancasterPicture by Sam Lancaster
Picture by Sam Lancaster
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A spokesman for the BDMLR said: “Unfortunately the dolphin has gone back into the sea before we could get a vet to look at it, which needed to be done. We don’t know if he had any injuries.

“It was stranded for about seven hours initially. Somebody I think reported seeing it at 1am. The coastguard were in attendance this morning and moved it.

“It was very small and so it’s possibly quite young. We don’t know if it’s maternally dependent because without having a measure of it we can’t age it. It could be that it has been split up from a parent, but we just don’t know that without a size.

“there’s probably something wrong with it and it’s likely to be seen again.”