Team rescues injured young dolphin!!

Marine museum staff, volunteers working to keep beached animal afloat and alive in pool. Virginia Beach, A young striped dolphin, ailing but still vigorous, washed up on the beach at 88t Street on Thursday, and the Virginia Marine Science Museum's Stranding Team went into action.

Beach strollers found the sleek, blue gray animal floundering in the surf. Rescuers got to it soon  enough to prevent serious damage by the pounding waves. By day's end the animal, probably a female and already dubbed "Maggie", was swimming energetically in a small pool at the Stranding Center, where volunteers and museum staff had begun around the clock shifts to keep her afloat and alive.

If she survives more than a couple of days, the team faces the problems of finding a place to rehabilitate her so she can be released to the wild, and finding a way to transport her, most likely be airlift.  The stranding occurred just after CITY COUNCIL decided to put off the museum's hoped for Phase III expansion, which would include not just a marine mammal display tank but a sophisticated stranding center capable of rehabilitating marine animals.

This is the first live dolphin stranding at the Oceanfront in  several years.  The striped dolphin, unlike a bottle nose, is a deep sea species rarely seen near shore.  She measured about 5 feet and weighted 75 pounds. There was a gash on her tail, either from a collision or a would be predator's bite.

She was listless while team members administered medications and took blood samples, but they placed her in the center's small tank, she burst into motion, almost overwhelming those who were trying to keep her from hurting herself.

"Her heart's going a mile a minute," one of the volunteers said as he held her in the tank. "The thing that concerns me is she's young ad she'll all by herself," said Mark Swingle, curator of the center. "something's wrong; we're just not sure what."