Rescued baby dolphin later dies

Earlier this week rescuers cleaned oil off of a baby bottlenose dolphin, but the dolphin died while enroute to a rescue facility called Gulf World Marine Park in Panama City, Florida. A necropsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.

The distressed baby dolphin was in shallow water in the Florida Panhandle at Fort Pickens National Park. Upon seeing the dolphin, rescuers tried to save it. Among the people who found the dolphin and helped scrape oil off of it was Christy Travis, 41, a resident of Arkansas who was on vacation. Travis told local reporters, “It was heartbreaking. Everyone was crying. We had oil all over us.” Efforts were made to clean the oil off of the dolphin and officials were contacted to transport it to a rehabilitation center in Panama City. However, the dolphin died on the way to Gulf World Marine Park. Courtnee Ferguson, a spokeswoman for the Unified Command in Mobile, Alabama, was quoted as saying, “A necropsy will be performed to determine the exact cause of death.” Authorities with the Unified Command indicated that the dolphin “had some oil on it,” but it is thought that the results of the necropsy will help to determine the precise reason the dolphin “beached itself.”