Two more marine animals were found stranded Monday, authorities said.
Rescuers from the International Fund for Animal Welfare responded to reports of a stranded porpoise off of Old Wharf Road in Wellfleet at about 7:20 a.m. The porpoise was rescued and released in Wellfleet’s Duck Harbor, the fund said in a statement.
Rescuers also rushed to help a common dolphin that was stranded after the tide receded at Duxbury Beach about noon, said New England Aquarium spokesman Tony LaCasse.
The dolphin, a 200-pound female, was treated by aquarium staff before being released on Gurnet Point. Her prognosis is guarded but good, the aquarium said.
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LaCasse said it was possible the dolphin stranded on Duxbury Beach had been rescued previously, on Sunday.
“Unless you can get dolphins to deep water, the likelihood of them getting stranded again is fairly high,” LaCasse said.
While it’s difficult to ever know for certain what causes a dolphin to strand, there are two main contributing factors this time of year, said LaCasse.
“You get hungry dolphins that take risks to get food. Normally, they’re in the deep ocean, but they’ll move inland, into areas they don’t know as well, and get stranded when low tide comes in,” LaCasse said.
The other factor that may lead to strandings is a bacterial infection called brucellosis, LaCasse said.
“You can never really tell what causes a stranding, but some combination of hunger and illness among the population is the most likely contributing factor,” LaCasse said.
These latest incidents came after animal rescue groups went to beaches Sunday in Barnstable and Duxbury to help 12 stranded dolphins.
Though common dolphins occasionally get stuck on the region’s beaches in early spring, the stranding in Duxbury, where 10 animals became trapped by low tide, was unusually large.
“I can’t recall when the last time an incident like this happened on the South Shore,” said LaCasse.
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The stranding was reported about 5 p.m. Sunday. Six of the dolphins were able to get back into the water on their own as the tide rose. Rescuers helped two others return to deeper water, but two more died.
LaCasse said rescuers did not have time to examine the animals because of the urgency required to get them back into the water.
In Barnstable, eight people from the International Fund for Animal Welfare collected and released two dolphins stranded near Bone Hill Road about 4:30 p.m. Sunday, said Jane Hoppe, assistant stranding coordinator at the animal welfare fund.
The dolphins, a male and a female, were healthy. Rescuers took the dolphins to another beach, where they were set free.
Mengqi Sun can be reached at mengqi.sun@globe.com.