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Two more dolphins have been found dead off Beaufort County shores this weekend, bringing the total since March 17 to five.

The dolphins were reported Saturday and Sunday, according to Wayne McFee, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, at Sea Pines on Hilton Head Island and Sands Beach in Port Royal, respectively.

Employees from the S.C. Marine Mammal Stranding Network, Charleston, were on their way to Beaufort County on Monday morning to retrieve the animals.

Three previous dolphins deaths have been reported in recent weeks.

A bottlenose dolphin washed ashore March 17 on Hilton Head Island between Sea Pines and Marriott's Grande Ocean Resort and died before marine biologists could reach it. That was an older male, and had a heart condition and probable pneumonia.

The second was spotted March 20 in the May River in Bluffton.

The third was in Fripp Inlet on March 22. It washed out to sea and biologists were unable to recover it, McFee said.

The two dolphins from this weekend will be taken to the Marine Mammal Standing Network for testing, as the ones on the 17th and 20th were, according to Jessica Conway, a technician for the network who retrieved the dolphins Monday.

Testing results take a few weeks to return, McFee said, so it remains too early to tell if any viruses or other diseases affected the dolphins.

The deaths appear to only be in migratory dolphins, not the resident ones in the Lowcountry estuarium, however, he said.

The cold and changing weather of the last few months could also be related to the deaths, he said.

Follow reporter Erin Moody at twitter.com/IPBG_Erin.

Related content:

3rd bottlenose dolphin found dead; cause unknown, March 22, 2014: http://bit.ly/1deH3Di

2nd dead bottlenose dolphin found in Beaufort County this week, March 20, 2014: http://bit.ly/1gKEynm

Dolphin deaths spreading to South Carolina, October 24, 2013: http://bit.ly/1gKEynm

Source: The Beaufort Gazette