Dolphin that swam 45 miles inland to Cambridgeshire dies after rescue effort

A young dolphin who was trapped in reeds at a river in Cambridgeshire has died.

The British Divers Marine Life Rescue were alerted to a common dolphin at the edge of the New Bedford River near Pymoor, which runs off the River Great Ouse, Saturday 2 September at around 7.30pm.

The young dolphin is thought to be one of a pair seen as far inland as Bluntisham over the last few days, around 45 miles from open water.

The Cambridgeshire Fire & Rescue Service were called for support and additional help and equipment.

The dolphin had wedged itself deep into the reeds, which have thick hollow stems and can grow to 5 meters high, making the task of extracting the dolphin even more difficult.

There was some minor visible trauma to the dolphin's dorsal area and its breathing rate was elevated.

The young dolphin was almost certainly maternally dependent and would need to be able to find its mother if it were to have a chance of survival, but with no sightings of an adult in that area of the river, it was looking more likely that they had become separated before the calf stranded.

The dolphin initially started to swim down river but quickly stopped and was carried back by the flow of the river to where it had started, the dolphin's course was corrected but again it made little effort to swim and was just being carried back to the river bank and reeds.

A vet was called out and the dolphin was put down on welfare grounds at around 1am.