The state of Oregon is located in the northern part of the US west coast, with mediterranean water temperature in summer but frigidly cold during winter. A temperature completely unsuitable for warm water animals like dolphins and turtles.
Correspondingly, it is an “anomaly” in itself to find those animals during the winter along the coast at all. And even more so, that the number of stranded warm-water dolphins and turtles seems to be increasing every year. Last winter, several turtles and half a dozen dolphins were reported on Oregon’s beaches.
Unsurprisingly, the marine mammals are often hypothermic and weak when they find themselves stranded. The stranding networks rely on civilian tips and reports to find the animals in time. However, while certain animals like sea turtles can be brought to the Oregon Coast Aquarium for rehabilitation, there is no suitable rehabilitation centre for most stranded marine mammals.
Nevertheless, NOAA points out that even if an animal cannot be rehabilitated, it still provides information on the stranding trend. Necropsies and sampling can be used to detect biotoxins and monitor the health of the ocean.
For now, the trend has been too recent and scarcely investigated to “know conclusively why non-native warm-water species end up in Oregon each year.” Large scale events like the current heatwave might have something to do with it but it is difficult to “quantify directly how they’re affecting marine mammal stranding.” NOAA assumes that it will still be some time until the stranding data can be looked at in the broad sense.
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