Dolphins Rescued from Lagoon off Pine Island
Two dolphins are back in deeper waters after being rescued from a shallow lagoon along Pine Island Creek on the east side of Pine Island, Florida.
The dolphins were first reported to Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. FWC sent a team to investigate and found two adult-sized dolphins pushing around a deceased dolphin calf in a 1,300-by-495-foot lagoon that was only a few feet deep at high tide. The only entrances to the lagoon were very shallow mangrove tunnels that the dolphins were unlikely able to navigate under normal circumstances. It’s unknown how long they had been trapped.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) — the federal agency responsible for overseeing the stewardship of marine mammals in U.S. waters — determined that the dolphins needed to be relocated to deeper waters and FWC assembled a team that included Brookfield Zoo Chicago’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (SDRP), Mote Marine Laboratory, Clearwater Marine Aquarium and the Lee County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) to attempt the rescue.
On Wednesday, Dec. 11, FWC coordinated the rescue with about 25 people and a LCSO helicopter crew, which helped to spot the dolphins. By 9:30 a.m. the dolphins were corralled in shallow waters.
The rescue team quickly moved the dolphins to a floating mat, where they were assessed by the team’s veterinarian. Both dolphins were females and a bit underweight. The larger dolphin, an animal SDRP first documented in 2003 in Pine Island Sound, also had a large, healing laceration behind its blowhole. The injured dolphin was given antibiotics, then the team began making its way toward deeper waters through the extremely shallow, muddy mangrove tunnel to release the animals near the Charlotte Shores neighborhood. The dolphins were released around 11 a.m.
SDRP first documented one of the dolphins in Pine Island Sound in 2003, when it was observed in the shallows off the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge — only a 20 mile swim from Wednesday’s rescue site, indicating the animal’s long-term residency along Pine Island’s coast. (Learn how we track dolphins in different locations using the Gulf of Mexico Dolphin Identification System (GOMDIS) here.)
The dolphins were tagged with satellite-linked transmitters and the SDRP will monitor their post-release movements. For updates, please follow the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program’s Facebook page.
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