{"id":525831,"date":"2026-03-08T02:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T02:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/525831\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T02:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T02:05:10","slug":"dolphins-and-a-seal-found-dead-on-eyre-peninsula-beaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/525831\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolphins and a seal found dead on Eyre Peninsula beaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Louth Bay resident Linda Davies has been visiting the beach for 50 years and says she has never seen two dead marine mammals on the same stretch of sand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Warning: This article contains images of dead marine life readers may find distressing.<\/p>\n

Last week she found an adult dolphin and an adult seal dead on a 6 kilometre stretch of beach north of Port Lincoln.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t think too much about it until we got further down the beach and found a [deceased] female adult seal [near Poonindie],” Ms Davies said.<\/p>\n

She reported the animals to the Department for Environment and Water (DEW) but was told samples would not be taken.<\/p>\n

“It was a bit distressing because they already knew about the seal,” Ms Davies said.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

A dead dolphin found on a Louth Bay beach on February 28. (Supplied: Linda Davies)<\/p>\n

When she returned to the beach three days later, both creatures were still there and she wanted to know why the animals had not been collected or examined.<\/p>\n

“The two animals were still just rotting on the beach \u2026 and the foam was really bad,” Ms Davies said.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know if it was the algae bloom \u2014 I’m not saying it was, I’m not saying it wasn’t.<\/p>\n

“I’m saying the procedures weren’t correctly done to actually know that.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Linda Davies says she reported the dead dolphin and seal to the Department for Environment and Water. (ABC Eyre Peninsula: Emma Pedler)<\/p>\n

A DEW spokesperson confirmed it received a report on February 26 of a dead seal at Todd River, near Poonindie, but said it was too decomposed for testing or collection.<\/p>\n

They added that DEW also received a report of a dolphin carcass south of Louth Bay on March 1.<\/p>\n

“Rangers attended the site but were unable to locate the carcass and believe it to have washed to sea,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

“While rangers may attend reported dead marine life, it is not always possible or required to take the carcass for necropsy or testing if it is too decomposed.<\/p>\n

“In these instances, and depending on its location, a carcass is either buried or left to further decompose and wash back to sea.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Department for Environment and Water said the dolphin and sea lion carcasses were too decomposed for testing. (Supplied: Linda Davies)<\/p>\n

The DEW spokesperson added that it received a report of a dead dolphin at North Shields, south of where the other carcasses were found, on February 9.<\/p>\n

“[South Australia’s National Parks and Wildlife Service] rangers attended on the same day and noted that the dolphin carcass was too decomposed for a necropsy or testing,” they said.<\/p>\n

Illness reported after seeing ‘yucky’ orange foam<\/p>\n

In North Shields, north of Port Lincoln, citizen scientist Wendy Lambert has been regularly taking water samples since the bloom broke out last year.<\/p>\n

She said in early February she noticed a small bloom near a reef south of North Shields.<\/p>\n

“When you get big wave actions, you do get foam,” Ms Lambert said.<\/p>\n

“But this was mucky foam and it wasn’t very pleasant \u2026 every day it became a little bit more. There was a dead dolphin and fairy penguin on the beach.<\/p>\n

“They all got washed away, then we had a big wave action for a couple of days and had foam coming across the road.<\/p>\n

“It was a yucky, orange foam. It was horrible.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Wendy Lambert has been sampling the water near her North Shields home since the algal bloom broke out. (ABC Eyre Peninsula: Emma Pedler)<\/p>\n

Ms Lambert said she felt unwell while the foam was present.<\/p>\n

“I felt physically sick. I had a headache and felt physically ill. I had to come inside,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It stayed in the seaweed and then it all went away.”<\/p>\n

\"Foam<\/p>\n

Foam at a beach in North Shields. (Supplied: Mark Wright)<\/p>\n

Ms Lambert said she was hopeful the environment would bounce back from the algal bloom that is still impacting some SA coastlines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It’s the climate change stuff that I’m worried about,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I think we will lose species, but I don’t think we know what we’re going to lose.”<\/p>\n

The DEW spokesperson said the impacts of the algal bloom were being monitored.<\/p>\n

“If you find sick or dead wildlife, includ\u00ading marine mam\u00admals and wild birds, call the Emer\u00adgency Animal Dis\u00adease Hot\u00adline on 1800 675 888,” they said.<\/p>\n

“Report fish deaths to Fishwatch on 1800 065 522.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Louth Bay resident Linda Davies has been visiting the beach for 50 years and says she has never…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[6343,64,63,261600,6345,75,13748,261599,261597,128,133665,261598],"class_list":["post-525831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-algal-bloom","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dead-dolphins-south-australia","tag-dolphin","tag-environment","tag-eyre-peninsula","tag-eyre-peninsula-algal-bloom","tag-linda-davies","tag-science","tag-sea-lion","tag-wendy-lambert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}