COURTESY OF PACIFIC WHALE FOUNDATION
Comforting a dolphin that beached itself Friday on
Maalaea Beach, Maui, were, from left, Mandy Migura
of the Pacific Whale Foundation; Skippy Hau, state
aquatics biologist; Claire Cappelle of the Hawaiian
Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary;
and Holly Fearnbach of the foundation.

8-hour rescue effort
fails to save
beached dolphin

One Maui advocate argues the
statewide response network
needs streamlining

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By Diana Leone
dleone@starbulletin.com

The recent death of a female rough-toothed dolphin that beached itself on Maui has renewed one wildlife group's call for improvements in the state's network that helps stranded marine animals.

While the death of the dolphin was unfortunate, a coordinator with the National Marine Fisheries Service said there was a "good, full response" to the situation and praised those who attended to the ailing dolphin.

The young dolphin beached itself about 10:45 a.m. Friday on Maalaea Beach and was helped in the water by a handful of volunteers for about eight hours, when a fisheries service veterinarian determined that the animal was too weak and had to be euthanized, witnesses and wildlife officials said.

"It was done humanely," said Holly Fearnbach, a wild dolphin project leader with the Kihei-based Pacific Whale Foundation.

But Greg Kaufman, the foundation's president, said he wished a vet could have been dispatched to the scene sooner.

"No one in the U.S. is allowed to touch, possess or help a marine mammal, whether it's sick, or in the process of dying, without the permission of the National Marine Fisheries Service -- and that includes state officials," Kaufman said.

In Friday's incident, that meant that Department of Land and Natural Resources aquatic officer Skippy Hau stood in the water with whale foundation staffers, awaiting instructions from the fisheries service by cell phone, Kaufman said.

"So you have half a dozen people standing neck-deep in the surf for 10 hours at a time," Kaufman said.

COURTESY OF PACIFIC WHALE FOUNDATION
A Sea Life Park veterinarian determined the young
dolphin was too weak and emaciated to be saved.

Margaret Akamine Dupree, protected species program coordinator for the Pacific Islands area office of the fisheries service, said the network that helps stranded marine animals responded properly after hearing of the beached dolphin.

The network includes the Division of Aquatic Resources, Sea Life Park and the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, among others, Dupree said. The Pacific Whale Foundation is not part of the network, she said.

The network's volunteer vets on Maui were unavailable Friday, and the fisheries service had to call in a vet from Sea Life Park to fly to Maui. Airline problems prevented the vet from leaving Oahu until about 4 p.m., she said.

Once on Maui, the vet evaluated the dolphin as quickly as possible and determined that the animal should be euthanized after an examination showed it was very weak and emaciated, and would not survive.

"Everyone did the best they could," Dupree said. "Sometimes these animals come in and they're too weak to survive.

"To some it might seem like there was a delayed response, but we had a good full response."

Kaufman said the fact that the Maui vets were unavailable highlights the problems with Hawaii's stranding network, which he described as "simply a telephone tree."

In other coastal communities, Kaufman said, stranding networks consist of dozens of volunteers from various marine wildlife groups and agencies who are available to assist when an animal becomes stranded.

"In a case like the stranding we had on Maui, everything is being spearheaded out of Honolulu blindly with no one on site," he said. "That is not the way a stranding network should work."

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Star-Bulletin reporter B.J. Reyes contributed to this article.