UK storms reveal dolphin bycatch deaths

Last week some of the worst storms in a decade battered southern Britain, with winds reaching almost 100mph. The weather continues to be far from calm with high winds and rough seas still causing problems for many who work in association with the marine environment. It is after a severe storm or period of high winds that many volunteers get ready for the onslaught sure to follow - of beaches littered with dead dolphins.

Often those dolphins entangled and killed in inshore bottom-set gill and tangle netting come ashore within a couple of days, those however that are killed further offshore are only washed up on our beaches after a period of bad weather, when tides and wind have brought the dead bodies close to the coast. Often these individuals never make it ashore and instead they join countless others to sink to the seabed. Last weeks' bad weather was no exception as reports of six common dolphins washed ashore in Dorset reached Marine Connection's Fisheries & Policy Officer, Lissa Goodwin, with a further two being found on Thurlston beach in Devon, both showing characteristic signs of bycatch.

Lissa was called out to her local beach of Wembury, in Devon on January 21 and in a hard to reach cove around Wembury Point, she found a dead, male, common dolphin. It was missing its upper jaw and the bottom jaw had been smashed on the right hand side, to leave teeth, bone and tissue hanging. With teeth missing and broken in places this gave characteristic signs of having been caught in the bass pair trawl fishery.

Additionally, Lissa points out “Both pectoral fins and part of the tail flukes were reduced to stumps, almost as though they had been cut in order to remove the dolphin from the net and no matter how many times you attend bodies on the beach, it is still moving to discover a once graceful and magnificent animal battered and bloody lying helpless on the rocks”

“With high winds still lashing the south coast, I await the next phone call to record and tag the next dolphin which will surely come ashore dead”.

This is not a new problem, or one which we are on the brink of solving. It is clear however that until we address the issue and provide adequate and effective mitigation measures, many more dolphins and porpoises will die.

Images copyright: Lissa Goodwin