A dead dolphin has been found on the banks of the River Barrow in landlocked Co Carlow.<\/p>\n
The discovery was made in the village of St Mullin’s in the south of the county on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
It has been described as an “incredibly rare” incident given the remains were found around 35km inland from the coast.<\/p>\n
The discovery was made by local resident Tony McGahan who said he came across the common dolphin “washed up” on the banks of the Barrow.<\/p>\n
Mr McGahan said the discovery was a “sobering reminder that our rivers are not isolated systems – they are directly connected to our coastal and marine environments.”<\/p>\n
He said: “Finds like his highlight how far inland marine species can travel, and how closely linked river health, coastal processes, and biodiversity truly are.<\/p>\n
“It also underlines the importance of continued monitoring, reporting, and protection of our waterways.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Carlow County Council has said it co-ordinated with a number of agencies to facilitate the safe removal of the dead dolphin from the water.<\/p>\n
Senior Executive Officer with the council’s Environment and Climate Action Department Liam Carroll said the local authority was notified about the deceased animal on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
He said: “On foot of the report, members of the Carlow County Council’s Environment Team engaged directly with the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) on a best course of action given the unique scenario presented.”<\/p>\n
Mr Carroll said the advice received from the IWDG required a plan of action to facilitate the deceased animal to be removed by an appropriately licensed fallen animal collector.<\/p>\n
“Subsequently on Thursday 18 December, Carlow County Council Environment Staff co-ordinated with Waterways Ireland who assisted in retrieving the carcass from the water’s edge to a safe and suitable location for onward removal.<\/p>\n
“Throughout this process, council staff continued engagement with the IWDG and provided images to assist them with recording of the occurrence,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Carroll estimated that the remains were discovered approximately 35km inland from the coast.<\/p>\n
He also thanked both the IWDG and Waterways Ireland staff for their “proactive engagement and assistance with this incident”.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the IWDG said such incidents are still rare but are starting to occur more regularly.<\/p>\n
It is thought that the male dolphin could have been following a school of fish upriver as a source of pray before then becoming stranded after the tide went out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dead dolphin has been found on the banks of the River Barrow in landlocked Co Carlow. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-325272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}