The Marine Mammal Center rescued a dolphin calf that stranded at Oceano Dunes in San Luis Obispo, CA. (SA)

Rescuers keep Minion wet during transport to Long Marine Lab in Santa Cruz, CA. © Maryann Avila

September 25^th, 2013. A 3-foot-long baby dolphin was found by a beachgoer on Oceano Dunes in San Luis Obispo County this morning. “Minion”, as it was later named, was all alone and trembling on the beach – he needed help!

Lisa Harper Henderson, site manager for The Marine Mammal Center’s San Luis Obispo Operations, along with volunteers Gary Angelus and Peggy and Leo DeWinter, arrived a short time later and prepared for the delicate rescue. Rescuing a cetacean is not a simple task, as the survival rate once it strands out of the water is small. With that in mind, the team’s top priority was to keep Minion wet and make sure his body weight was well distributed so as to not impact his fins or crush internal organs.

The team administered midazolam, a sedative used to control his tremors and to stabilize him for transport. He was then transported to Long Marine Lab in Santa Cruz. There, he’ll receive the care a young dolphin needs to survive. It’s too early tell what the prognosis will be for Minion, but based on experience, it is likely he will need human care for the rest of his life as experience shows that when dolphin calves are separated from their mothers at such a young age, they will not survive if released back to the wild (Ndlr Sibylline : this is totally wrong. In Spain, they are used to this kind of situation and the first step they follow is the release among a pod of the same specie and a monitoring of the group with the calf, until adoption or reunion with the mother (when they are lucky). See this example : Liberan a una cría de delfín que quedó atrapada en un trasmallo (Andalucía, España)).

This is the first live dolphin rescue The Marine Mammal Center has conducted since 2011.  Click the link below to read about Ernestina, a dolphin spotted near San Francisco International Airport in 2012, that we helped monitor but did not ultimately need to rescue.

Source