Live white-beaked dolphin washed ashore on Egmond aan Zee beach

A live white-beaked dolphin washed ashore on the beach of Egmond aan Zee on Sunday night, the SOS Dolfijn foundation reported on Facebook. The animal was found by walkers, who called Marco Snijders, the beach warden who monitors washed-up goods and animals.

“I asked if the animal was still alive, because if so, it is urgent,” Snijders told NH Nieuws. He immediately alerted SOS Dolfijn and went to the beach to take action.

Initially, the dolphin was lying in the surf. It was pulled onto the beach to save it. “It is a mammal; it needs to breathe,” Snijders explained. Once on the beach, the dolphin was kept cool with wet sheets. “The animal resisted, and due to the stress, its body temperature can rise too high,” Snijders said. “We had to ensure that it didn’t suffer from heat stress.”

The dolphin has now been transferred to the SOS Dolfijn rescue center in Anna Paulowna, where a veterinarian will examine it. At first glance, the dolphin had “no injuries or entanglements,” a spokesperson for SOS Dolfijn told the broadcaster.

But the fact that the dolphin washed ashore indicated that something was wrong, Snijders explained, so it made no sense to try to push the animal back into the sea. “Then there is a chance that it will beach itself again after a few hours. Then it will be truly stressed.”

Beaked dolphins have a blunt snout and a high, sickle-shaped dorsal fin and can grow to between 2.5 and 3 meters in size. They mainly live in the North Atlantic Ocean and rarely wash ashore in the Netherlands.