“These kinds of strandings aren’t that uncommon. The difficulty with this rescue was that is was so remote that we had to requisition trucks to reach the dolphins,” Branon said.

A call reporting the strandings came in at 7:45 a.m. and by 8 a.m., rescuers from the International Fund for Animal Welfare were on scene, according to Kerry Branon, a spokeswoman for the group.

Seven dolphins were rescued Friday morning after they were stranded in Wellfleet.

When the International Fund team arrived, they had to pull the dolphins free with their hands.

“We had to get them onto these carts we use for moving [the animals], but they were stuck in the mud,” Branon explained. “So we had to use brawn. Grab and lift.”


From there, the dolphins were brought to specialized trailers used by the group to transport marine animals to the ocean, according to Branon. The dolphins were examined by an on-site veterinarian before being successfully released back into the waters.

“Getting stranded is a traumatic experience for these animals and they sometimes don’t survive. In this instance, we’re so glad that all seven were able to be successfully released,” Branon said.

Friday’s rescue makes 101 marine animals stranded on Massachusetts beaches since the year began. For comparison, the International Fund rescued 35 animals during the first two months of 2016 and 15 during the same time frame in 2015.

In the past week alone, there were seven mass strandings during which more than 20 animals were rescued, according to Brian Sharp of the International Fund.

“The winter months —December through March or April— remain our busiest time of year,” said Branon. But the number of rescues we’ve had so far has been unusually high.”

The Cape remains one of the few places in the world where mass strandings happen frequently.


“Cape Cod is tricky,” Branon said. “It has a number of factors that could contribute to mass strandings.”

Those factors include the Cape’s hook shape, its gently sloping beaches, and coastal tides, which can cause animals to get confused and then stranded on a beach, the International Fund said.

While some of the factors that cause strandings can be understood, the reason behind the frequency remains elusive.

“2012 was our busiest year ever with 190 strandings [in January and February],” said Branon. “But some years are really slow and some are busy. It just depends and we don’t know why.”

Another oddity is that the stranded animals have increasingly been females and young calves when, previously over the past decade or so, young males were the norm, Sharp said.

“It’s certainly a trend we’ve noticed, but it remains a mystery for now,” Branon said of the change.

Despite the influx of strandings, Branon said the Fund’s rescue team is ready to respond and rescue the animals when they wash up on shore.

“We’re on call 24/7,” Branon said. “Whenever a call comes in, we’ll be ready.”

Andrew Grant can be reached at andrew.grant@globe.com.

Correction: Because of a reporting error, an earlier version of this article misstated where the dolphins were stranded.