NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – Officials discovered a mature dolphin found deceased on the beach at 17th Avenue North Thursday.

North Myrtle Beach spokesperson Pat Dowling says the city’s beach patrol notified the SC Department of Natural Resources and Coastal Carolina University and the city’s sanitation division collected the animal and kept it on ice until a professor from the marine sciences department at CCU could collect it to perform a necropsy.

Dowling did not know the name of the professor.

This is not the first dolphin to be found dead this week on the SC coast. According to the South Carolina United Turtle Enthusiasts Facebook page, volunteers retrieved a dead female neonate bottle-nosed dolphin off of South Litchfield at Midway Inlet Tuesday.

You can call the SC DNR at 800-922-5431 to report injured or dead marine mammals.