Thanks to the public’s explicit reports, the stranding of three dolphins in a drainage canal system in Grand Chenier, LA, had a lucky ending. The Audubon Coastal Wildlife Network (CWN) assumes that the two females and a calf had been forced out of their habitat by the storm surge and coastal flooding from Hurricane Laura.
Due to the deep and complex canal system, the large-scale effort spanned several days despite the help and coordination of NOAA Fisheries, SeaWorld Orlando and San Antonio, the National Marine Mammal Foundation, L.H. Fenstermaker, and NOAA's Office of Law Enforcement. Finally, the rescue team was able to rescue the animals and transport them back to their natural habitat.
Before release into the Gulf of Mexico at Rutherford Beach, the two adults were satellite-tagged to be monitored post-rescue. The monitoring will be conducted by the Chicago Zoological Society's Sarasota Dolphin Research Program to “provide valuable data on the success of the rescue, where these individual dolphins range, and a better understanding of overall dolphin movements in Louisiana.”
The full article and video footage can be found here: https://newsroom.audubonnatureinstitute.org/two-adult-dolphins-and-calf-rescued-after-being-trapped-in-drainage-canal-in-louisiana?fbclid=IwAR0x38u--vBOONfoiZnrqP1ar0wJmH2xwHx6UXCmObPgF22OHeXbrgPtbKI
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