DOLPHIN
The number of dolphins stranded and dead in Galicia in the last two days rises to at least a dozen. But there could be many more. The strong storm at sea during the last days threw these animals onto the coast in places as distant as Muros and Vigo, but also in Ribeira, Porto do Son, A Illa de Arousa and O Grove.

Most belong to the common dolphin species ( Delphinus delphis ), typical of tropical and subtropical waters that did not abound in the interior of the Galician estuaries, where the dominant one is the bottlenose dolphin ( Tursiops truncatus ) or arroaz, the most common cetacean known to the family.

In any case, the Institute for the Study of the Bottlenose Dolphins (BDRI), based in O Grove , insists that the number of common oceanic dolphins, also known as shortfin dolphins , has increased significantly, reaching even to register groups of up to a hundred individuals in the Ría de Arousa.

Among the victims there are also two specimens of striped dolphin ( Stenella coeruleoalba ), a marine mammal found in temperate and tropical waters around the world.

The members of the Coordinator for the Study of Marine Mammals (Cemma), in charge of the Network of Strandings of Galicia, try to multiply to practice the necropsy to all these specimens and determine the causes of death , although they are absolutely overwhelmed.

Yesterday they left Nigrán at eight o'clock in the morning to visit all the sighting areas and could not complete the tour because twelve hours later they were still in Vigo , and more specifically in the Toralla area, where they tried to recover the two beached dolphins . One of them was already dead and the other had been lost sight of, but he could have suffered the same fate.

Alfredo López, responsible for Cemma, confirms that because of the storm the number of strandings has skyrocketed.