Volunteers looking for sea turtle nests near Pawleys Island find dead dolphin

South Litchfield Beach, S.C. (WPDE) — Volunteers with South Carolina United Turtle Enthusiasts, or S.C.U.T.E., were looking for sea turtle nests early Tuesday morning when they found a dead dolphin, according to Jeff McClary with the group.

A deceased female neonate bottlenose dolphin was found off south Litchfield Beach at Midway Inlet shortly before 7 a.m., McClary said.

He said the volunteers called him and he went down to get it off the beach and also called officials with the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of NOAA, to get the dolphin and have a necropsy performed on it.

Wayne McFee, with the service, said the necoropsy was inconclusive.

"We do know the animal was nutritionally compromised and had nursed at least once. We believe the animal probably didn't live more than a couple of days," McFee said.

He said they won't know exactly what happened until they get more test results back, which could take weeks.

McClary said it's not unusual for volunteers with S.C.U.T.E. to find dead marine life during their searches for sea turtle nests.

McFee said South Carolina experiences about 50 strandings of marine mammals per year, and 80 percent of these are bottlenose dolphins.

He also stressed that beachgoers should not push any live animal found on the beach back into the water.

"Those animals are sick and dying and wouldn't be on the beach if they were healthy so pushing them back does nothing but expose them to predation (sic) by sharks and cause them to strand somewhere else, making it difficult for trained responders to properly assess the animal," he said.

The hotline number to report a stranded marine mammal is 800-922-5431.