Baby Dolphin Dies 2 Days After Rescue From Delaware Rocks

NEW CASTLE, DE — A crying dolphin that was saved from the shore of a Delaware park on the 4th of July holiday on Sunday has died. The male bottlenose dolphin calf died Tuesday while in the care of experts at the Marine Education, Rehabilitation and Research Institute, the Delaware News Journal reported.

Two days earlier, someone in the area near the rocks at Battery Park in New Castle heard a dolphin cry, and alerted the Good Will Fire Company, according to the report.

Firefighters and Delaware State Parks volunteers worked to free the dolphin from the rocks until staff members from the marine institute arrived from 80-some miles away in Lewes, Delaware.

A tent was wrapped around the dolphin, which was wrapped in wet towels to keep cool until then.

MERR Executive Director Suzanne Thurman estimated the dolphin to have bee 2-3 months old. At that age, Thurman told the News Journal, he should have been with his mother. Since there were no other dolphins in the Delaware River nearby, Thurman suggested the calf became separated from his mother much more south than New Castle, and had swum up stream to try and find her.

Dolphins have long been considered by scientists to be among the most intelligent animals, sharing the same genome as humans.