Dead dolphins aren’t much fun

Three dolphins washed up dead on the shores of Imperial Beach in the past month — a fourth on Silver Strand State Beach — and officials are investigating at least two of them to determine if they were killed as a result of Navy sonar exercises.

Imperial Beach lifeguard sergeant Jason Lindquist said the three dolphin corpses were found by lifeguards during their early-morning rounds on October 16, October 20, and November 3. Another dolphin was found on October 21 to the north on Silver Strand beach.

"We do a morning patrol, come on at seven. We're normally the ones who see them," Lindquist said. "We call the NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] fisheries so they can take the dolphins” for a necropsy. “Sometimes they take all of it, sometimes they take a part of it."

A lifeguard at Silver Strand State Beach was unable to say how many dead dolphins have been found on their beach or on what dates. "We actually don't have any records of strandings. We don't keep track of that," said lifeguard Jake James.

The October 20/21 beaching of bottlenose dolphins at Imperial Beach and Silver Strand are being investigated by the National Marine Fisheries Service of the NOAA in connection with the Navy sonar use on the dates of October 19 and 20.

Jim Milbury of the NOAA Fisheries Service said, "We are initiating an investigation of the event…. We've done the necropsies but the analysis is not complete yet." He said the necropsies take place at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla.

Navy spokesperson Lt. Julie Holland said, "We were notified on October 23rd by the Fisheries Service that two bottlenose dolphins were found" at Imperial Beach and Silver Strand. She confirmed that Navy sonar exercises took place during shifts on October 19 and 20.

At press time, Holland said she was unable to report whether any other sonar use occurred around the times coinciding with the dolphin corpses found on October 16 and November 3.

The headless corpse from November 3 is still on the beach. Jesus Gonzalez, the lifeguard who found the animal, said that NOAA Fisheries decapitated the dolphin for a necropsy — indicating that the agency is also investigating the incident.

There have long been concerns that the use of sonar by the Navy could be harming sealife. As a result of a September 2015 settlement in a lawsuit by environmental groups including the organization Earthjustice, the NOAA Fisheries Service must investigate and publicize marine animal deaths whenever there is a connection to Navy sonar use.

David Henkin, an attorney at Earthjustice, said the organization is "aware of one dolphin that was found dead on Imperial Beach on October 21" as well as the one at Silver Strand on the same date.

"These two dolphins are currently the subject of an investigation by the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine if Navy sonar training in the area caused the deaths," he said via email. When told about the other dolphins found in the area in the past month, he replied, “I’m not aware of other dead dolphins at Imperial Beach during this same general time period.”

According to Earthjustice, there are only 323 bottlenose dolphins known to live in California coastal waters.

Despite the fact that the Imperial Beach lifeguards recorded October 20 as the date they found the dolphin corpse under investigation, NOAA Fisheries, Navy officials, and other press accounts have reported October 21 as the date both dolphins under investigation were found, and the Earthjustice organization has also been told that the beachings were on that date.

So far, officials from NOAA Fisheries have been unable to account for the discrepancy in dates. If the corpse was in fact found on the 20th, it would coincide with the Navy's use of sonar that same day.

As of press time, NOAA Fisheries was also unable to account for the beaching incidents reported by Imperial Beach lifeguards on October 16 and November 3 or for the dates and number of necropsies performed recently.

A spokesperson at the center referred all questions back to NOAA’s Milbury, who forwarded a message from NOAA that stated, "The investigation into the recent strandings is still preliminary and any conclusions are not appropriate to discuss at this time."