The Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP) retrieved the juvenile dolphin carcass from a beach near Great Yarmouth for a post-mortem – this species is usually found hunting squid and octopus around the western Scottish and Irish coastlines.
Risso’s dolphins usual global range stretches from Australia to the Arabian Ocean and the northeast Atlantic where they are usually found in deeper waters, therefore just why this individual became stranded so far south in the North Sea is as yet unknown. Hopefully post-mortem results will help determine the cause of death, however, the juvenile male was in an emaciated condition, which the CSIP suggest may be linked to a nutritional loss suffered as a result of being out of habitat.
The last recorded Risso’s dolphin in the southern North Sea was back in the 1960s, this is therefore a very unusual case.
