A lone dolphin was stuck in a creek in Florida. Watch the human chain form to rescue it
For nearly three weeks, a dolphin on Florida’s west coast lost its way.
According to a Facebook post from the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in early January, the juvenile was first spotted Jan. 1 in Allen’s Creek in a residential area.
For days on end, a team with the aquarium, along with folks from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, monitored the marine mammal — which couldn’t seem to find its way back out to the ocean.
Despite the tight quarters, the dolphin was not in distress, the facility said: “We noted that the animal was in good body condition with normal respiration rates and was displaying normal behavior, such as foraging, during observations.”
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Regardless, the creek “posed potential long-term problems for the animal, such as isolation from other dolphins and an increased risk of harassment and human interactions,” the aquarium wrote.
NOAA determined Wednesday, Jan. 18, was D-Day: 28 people in all linked up to create “a human chain” to herd the dolphin through a narrow gate into open waters.
A video along with the aquarium’s post shows the Herculean effort involved; the rescuers in the chain splashed, waved their arms and made noises to encourage the dolphin toward the exit, through a gap under a small bridge.
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“Our main goal was to create a straight line,” said Brittany Baldrica, the aquarium’s senior rescue biologist. “Every time we would come up to an obstacle, whether that was a tree or a dock we would have to navigate around those while still maintaining shoulder to shoulder, so that was a bit challenging...we all moved at a steady pace.”
It worked; the dolphin is now safely back in open waters.
As for the aquarium, the happy news was short-lived: A 37-year-old dolphin who had been rescued off the coast years earlier, Hemingway, aka “Hemi,” the bottlenose, passed away early Monday.
“Our team is heartbroken this morning,” read a Facebook post, along with a picture of the beloved rescue, which had a suspected gastrointestinal condition.
This story was originally published January 23, 2023 at 5:30 PM.
