Employees of the Seal Center Pieterburen rescued a stranded porpoise on Tuesday afternoon. The animal died last night, SOS Dolphin reports that the young porpoise had been collected.
At the end of the afternoon, the Seal Center received a report that a stranded harbor porpoise had been found at the Punt van Reide near the Dollard. The employees of the Seal Center have removed the porpoise from the mudflats and handed it over to SOS Dolfijn. He then brought the animal by dolphin ambulance to Anna Pavlovna, reports RTV North.
According to a spokeswoman for SOS Dolphin, the animal was ill. The harbor porpoise is going for further research to the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Utrecht University.
Most common whale
The website whale beaches keeps track of the number of stranded mammals on the Dutch coast. This month there were already nine porpoises, four of which on 7 March. The porpoise in Groningen has not yet been included in the count.
The porpoise is one of the smallest whale species with a size of about one and a half meters. It is the most common whale in the North Sea. A porpoise has to catch up to 10 percent of its own body weight in food every day, reports SOS Dolfijn. That is about 3 to 5 kilograms of fish per day.
If this is not possible or insufficient for a day, the health of a harbor porpoise quickly deteriorates and the animal loses weight. A harbor porpoise then weakens, after which parasites can quickly take over.
Research in Utrecht
The University of Utrecht states in an earlier study that dead porpoises are found more often in March and August than in the rest of the year. Those two peaks are possibly caused by the migration of harbor porpoises.
In many cases it is impossible to determine what causes harbor porpoises to die, because many found dead animals are already in a state of decomposition. Other causes of death are attacks by gray seals, infections, emaciation and bycatch from fishing.
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