Katrina dolphin rescue underway

Date : 15/09/2005

Rescuers are trying to save the lives of eight dolphins washed from their aquarium home during Hurricane Katrina.

The mammals were spotted swimming off Mississippi on Saturday, after their tanks at the Marine Life Aquarium in Gulfport were flooded during the storm.

Worried wildlife experts are now trying to get the bottlenose dolphins to jump onto rubber mats, so they can be moved to salt-water tanks to recover.

They were swept out to sea by a 12m high wave that crashed into their tank.

Experts say if the animals don't jump onto the mats they will have to be rounded up in nets, as they are very thin and some appear to be injured.

The dolphins have lived most of their lives in captivity and have been out of their tanks since the hurricane hit on 29 August.

Moby Solangi, owner of the Marine Life Aquarium, said she was pleased the dolphins had stuck together out at sea.

"Once we realised the dolphins had been swept out to sea during the hurricane, we feared that they had died, " said Ms Solangi.

"We are just thrilled that they have stayed together during the past couple of weeks."

NEWS UPDATE: 16/09/2005

Wildlife experts say they have rescued two dolphins swept away from their aquarium after Hurricane Katrina, and hope to save another six. Jackie, who is 30 years old, and her offspring, Toni, 16, were picked off the coast of Mississippi on Thursday.

The animals were sighted in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday. The bottlenose dolphins have lived most of their lives in captivity and cannot fend for themselves in the wild.

Rescuers said they planned to train the mammals to jump on to mats alongside their boats, before taking them to salt-water tanks to recover.

It was not clear if that is how Jackie and Toni were rescued.

Experts from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service were helping with the rescue attempt. NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman Connie Barclay had earlier said if the animals could not be trained, they would have to be captured in nets. "They'll surely die if we don't rescue them," she said.

A wave estimated to be 40ft (12m) high swept the mammals from their tank at the aquarium and into Mississippi Sound when Katrina struck on 29 August.

Trainers take a boat out to a spot in the Gulf of Mexico to feed the dolphins vitamin-laced fish three times a day.

The animals will be rescued in the next few days.

Six other dolphins from low-lying tanks rode out the storm in hotel swimming pools and have since been moved to aquariums in Florida.

NEWS UPDATE: 19/09/2005

Three dolphins were gently removed from a Holiday Inn swimming pool last weekend. A fourth member of their group was picked up in the Gulf of Mexico.

They were all driven to a nearby U.S. Navy engineering base, where they were lowered into a large saltwater tank.

"These animals kind of bonded together ... in a group," said Jeff Foster, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service. "They ... stayed together, kind of like a family."

When their trainers went looking for them, they quickly showed themselves and came looking for food. Raised in captivity, they lack survival skills. "They don't know how to feed themselves out in the wild," said veterinarian Connie Chevis. "If you look at them, they have lost a lot of weight being out in the ocean environment."

Using food to coax them onto floating rafts, handlers caught the first three dolphins and put them in the hotel swimming pool. The others came close, but seemed leery of the boats.

Scientists prefer to tempt the dolphins into getting caught, rather than using more traumatic netting techinques.

The long-term plan is to find a permanent home for these the dolphins, and to preferably keep them all together.

Wildlife specialists hope to bring the remaining four in as soon as possible, before they get sick or are attacked by sharks.

NEWS UPDATE: 21/09/2005

All four dolphins that were missing from a group of eight have been rescued off the coast of Biloxi, Mississippi.

Surrounded by trainers and marine biologists, the weakened dolphins were kept on rafts until a boat could bring them to shore.

Four were brought back in safely, but rescuers lost track of the other four for a few days.

Source: BBC News & nbc4.tv

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