Record numbers of dead dolphins off Cape Cod

Off America’s North Atlantic coast the waters are changing at a speed so fast that some species may be struggling to keep up. It’s six in the morning and my cameraman, Dai Baker is filling his creative Timberlands with stunning sunrise shots and as it races up from the horizon the morning feels curiously warm, maybe ten celsius, yet this is March and we’re on Cape Cod.

We are witnessing just one hot, sunny day in one of the Cape’s mildest winters on record and at exactly the same time marine life is behaving like never before – sometimes with distressing consequences.

“This is the best place to hang it from, it’s really tough,” says Michael Moore, a former British scientist now working on the Cape, as he saws a hole out of a dorsal fin, putting me off sushi for the next few days.

“Pass me the chain”: he adds before hooking an adolescent Common Dolphin clean off its belly, it swings above our heads, dark red blood drips from its open mouth before he lowers it on a brushed steel examination table. Measurements of length and girth are taken to see if this animal was starving, “53 kilos” he shouts to his assistant who is keen to jot down weights before Moore eagerly moves on to the next step of the forensic process, and ultimately this animal will be cut open so any clues as to why it became stranded on Wellfleet beach will be harvested through toxicology reports.

Yet Moore knows that what he’s really doing is really discounting the obvious, that this animal had no disease, no injury, no reason to beach itself: “We’ve got a problem here because the action is probably behavioural and its always tricky to judge behaviour when the animal is dead”.

Michael Moore has plenty more where this guy came from, nearly 180 dolphins have been washed ashore in the last two months. Images taken by the International Fund for Animal Welfare show them gasping for breath, panicked by the touch of rescuers from IFAW who worked tirelessly to transport as many as they could to safety, despite those efforts around 120 died.

Katie Moore is head of Mammal Rescue at IFAW and looks emotional as I talk to her about the demands of the last couple of months: “It’s been like nothing I’ve ever imagined, you know this lasted for 36 days.

“We found that they seemed to calm down if we put their heads together and in turn that seemed to make us calm down but you know we’ve seen an increase in water temperatures around here and we need to know if that’s interfering with their prey and are they are having to hunt for different food?”

The problem for the dolphins will partly be one of geography, the Cape is bowl-shaped with a relatively small inlet so tides swirl the water around and all species can become trapped in a marine environment that behaves like a giant washing machine. Tides rush in and out, dolphins may become disorientated and are left high and dry every year but never before in such huge numbers.

I wanted to find out more about this two degree theory and producer Emily drove us an hour further up the coast, to the very tip of the Cape, Provincetown. On the Macmillan pier sits the Shear Water, a twin deck, forty footer.

Scientists wearing orange survival suits are busy on board, loading everything needed for this weekly voyage of analysis – such as plankton nets, a sophisticated underwater thermometer and sacks of pretzels. In command for the day is one “Stormy” Mayo, I know fab name. He runs the Center for Coastal Studies, for 30 years he’s charted the movements of the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale and he’s never seen a year like this one: “They’re here so much earlier than they should be. They showed up in November this year – really strange.”

Twenty-five miles from Provincetown my cameraman Dai peers down from the upper decks and shouts “I’m going to need a bigger lens” in as convincing a Hollywood accent as a lad from Risca can muster. We all giggle, well only me and him actually, and then I see what he’s on about.

An imposing, dramatic, admittedly slightly frightening creature is throwing itself out of the water and coming towards our boat.

Image taken under NOAA permit #14603

The whale experts on board have never seen this behaviour before – Stormy doesn’t try to explain it – those who do, applying human logic to whales, leave him rather annoyed. Like all of us, Stormy stands on the deck with a degree of awe. This is one of just 475 North Atlantic Right Whales anywhere in the world, they can live to 100 years old boasting a body weight of 30 tonnes and a length of 40 feet.

There’s a nervousness from Stormy to move on and a few minutes later after we’ve sailed to calmer waters there’s an iPhone being passed around the boat explaining why – video of a yacht in South African waters being smashed apart by a whale behaving in identical circumstances. He’s been watching these spectacular animals for 30 years, it’s no surprise he knows when things don’t feel right.

We speed away… closer to more placid animals who appear perfectly content with having measurements taken of their food source, namely plankton, and environmental temperatures – temperatures that have been rapidly increasing in the last few months according to Stormy: “We measure surface temperatures and we are about two degrees celsius warmer compared to the average over the last 30 years, the other thing we’ve noticed is their food source, namely plankton is richer and stronger than before.

“The whole basic biology of the area has changed in almost a season.”

I ask him what/who is to blame: “I know what you’re hinting at, truth is I don’t know if humans are to blame but it feels to me like it’s only us who can sort it out and the rest of the world is waiting”