First stranded dolphin of 2025 found at Jersey Shore

🐬The Common dolphin was very weak and euthanized by a veterinarian

🐬It was the first stranded dolphin of the year at the Jersey Shore

🐬There were already five at this time in 2024

MONMOUTH BEACH — A dolphin found in a Jersey Shore bayside creek is the first one to strand itself this year in New Jersey

A male Common dolphin was found stranded in the thick mud of the shoreline near Meadow Avenue in Monmouth Beach, according to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center. Police and public works workers sprayed water on the dolphin to keep it comfortable while it awaited the arrival of the stranding team.

The team lifted the dolphin into a stretcher, which a construction crew working nearby used a forklift to lift it into a response vehicle for transport to a veterinarian.

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Underweight, weak and lethargic

An exam determined the dolphin to be underweight, weak and lethargic with lesions on multiple parts of its body. Abrasions were present on the flukes and pectoral fins. The dolphin's prognosis for survival was poor and it was euthanized to prevent further suffering, according to the MMSC.

A necropsy will be performed at the state Department of Agriculture's Animal Health Diagnostic Lab in Trenton

The MMSC's count of stranded Cetaceans shows this is the first stranded dolphin at a New Jersey beach since December and the first of 2024. By comparison, there were five stranded dolphins in New Jersey by this time a year ago. No whales have been found stranded in New Jersey in 2025.

Photos and video posted on Facebook by Bradford Milburn show a whale floating in the Delaware River near the Delaware Memorial Bridge on Sunday.

Last year, 46 dolphins, six harbor porpoises and nine whales got stranded.

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