On Tuesday morning, St. Johns County Beach Services and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission worked together to remove a dead dolphin from St. Augustine Beach after a beachgoer reported it to a toll worker. The Office of Public Affairs produced a video documenting the process.
As soon as Beach Services relayed the sighting to FWC, Marine Mammal Assistant Research Scientist Nadia Lentz drove out to respond. The carcass was found to have washed ashore south of the A Street beach access. With the help of Beach Services technicians Trevor Stevens and Grady Baxley, Lentz performed the initial stages of a necropsy—taking pictures of and biological samples from the carcass for further analysis later—and removed the dead dolphin in her vehicle.
Lentz said the dolphin had been “heavily shark-scavenged” before washing onto St/ Augustine Beach, but that aquatic predators weren’t necessarily the cause of death.
“It does appear that this dolphin was in poor body condition and had something going on prior to the sharks,” Lentz said.
Lentz took the time to explain FWC’s procedure to passersby on the beach who stopped to observe her taking samples and moving the dolphin, educating them on how these finds, grisly as they seem to most people, help researchers track the health of marine mammal populations. She also thanked Stevens and Baxley for keeping watch over the carcass before she arrived and for helping her move it up the beach to be loaded onto the FWC pickup truck.
Tuesday’s quick, cooperative response is just one example of St. Johns County’s close working relationship with government agencies like FWC.
People are urged to call the FWC hotline at 1-888-404-3922 if they see an injured, stranded, or dead animal on the beach or elsewhere.
