Winter 2002-3 Strandings, Gloucester, MA

The winter of 2003 started off very slow for marine mammal strandings, fortunately. It wasn't until February that we started to receive calls about seals on the beaches of Boston's North Shore (see data below). We have seen several of these northern visitors, most of which look healthy and rest on shore for one to three days before going back out to sea to feed.

Most of these reports have been of harp seals, an 'ice' seal that travels down from eastern Canada during the cold winter months. We usually see young (approximately one year old) harp seals, called 'beaters,' whose fur is light tan with dark splotches over the entire body. Except for their coat pattern, harp seals look very similar to harbor seals, which are in Massachusetts year round. Harps haul out on beaches, on ice and snow or even on floating docks (see image).

Common Dolphin Sighting, March 4th, 2003

We received a report of a dolphin swimming near Front Beach in Rockport, Massachusetts. Allison Glass and other Whale Center staff responded to the call and found a short-beaked common dolphin in very shallow water near shore. It was swimming in circles, listing to its left side and had some blood around its mouth. Common dolphins are usually found far offshore, in deeper waters off the continental shelf. They are very social and form groups, called pods, of up to hundreds of dolphins at a time. The fact that this animal was alone, far inshore of its normal habitat and acting oddly was very alarming.

We observed the dolphin for approximately an hour as it swam into Old Harbor in Rockport and then finally moved into very shallow water and died. Although this case ended sadly, we collected the specimen and brought it to the New England Aquarium in the hope that further research will determine why it died. We always try to learn as much as possible from every incident, in order to gain understanding of these species and the possible threats they face in their environment.