HUTCHINSON ISLAND - Thirty dolphins stranded on a southeastern Florida beach were euthanized early Saturday after experts and volunteers spent hours trying to get them to swim back to the ocean.
The roughtooth dolphins were part of a group of 36 dolphins that beached themselves Friday on Hutchinson Island.
With limited space at the area's lone care facility, experts decided they could try to nurse only six dolphins back to health.
The remaining 30, including four calves, were given a lethal injection that slows breathing and eventually stops the heart, said Steve McCulloch, executive director of the Division of Marine Mammal Research and Conservation at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce.
"It was a very painful, very emotional and very difficult decision to make," McCulloch said. "You feel helpless in this situation, but you can't let them suffer and there's not enough facilities to care for them."
The surviving six dolphins, two males and four females, were taken to Harbor Branch's critical care pool and were being monitored around the clock.
Four of them were to be transported today to Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota. The other two were to be moved to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.
Ten of the dead dolphins were taken to a necropsy lab at Sea World. The other 20 were taken to a pathobiology lab at the Florida Marine Research Institute in St. Petersburg, where experts will try to determine why the dolphins stranded themselves.
Veterinarians chose the surviving dolphins based mostly on condition, behavior and age; calves don't make good candidates because they lack the social or survival skills to eventually be released back into the wild, McCulloch said.
