The dolphin stranded in the Qiantang River was successfully rescued! Wait, why is the dolphin on the "river beach"?

On the evening of December 4, a short video of "Three men in Zhejiang rescued a stranded dolphin" went viral on social media platforms. Sharp-eyed netizens recognized at a glance that the dolphin was stranded on the Qiantang River mudflats in the 20th section of Qiantang District, Hangzhou.

“Yes, they were rescued this afternoon by three people who were trying to catch the fish on the beach.” A volunteer who was calling the tide at Section 20 confirmed the news: “Going down the river bank to catch the fish is not allowed. We don’t know much about the specific rescue process.”

At around 8 o'clock in the evening, the reporter of Chao News contacted one of the three men, Mr. Zhu, who described the whole process of discovering and rescuing the dolphin.

Rescue dolphins. Source: Screenshot of social platform

The stranded dolphin was about 2 meters long

"It was around 1pm when we were heading back to the riverbank from the beach when we suddenly saw a large object not far away," said Mr Zhu. At first he thought it was an abandoned toy, but the object was moving, "and it seemed like its tail was swinging up and down."

Mr. Zhu asked two strangers nearby to go and take a look.

When they got closer, they found a dolphin lying on the mudflat.

"We couldn't recognize it either. I said it was a dolphin, and a man next to me said it was a finless porpoise." Mr. Zhu told reporters that no one could figure out what it was, but they were very clear in their minds, "It's not an ordinary fish, we have to save it."

The dolphin's skin was already quite dry, and it was breathing heavily. "It was about two meters long and very heavy." Mr. Zhu usually works on tire repairs and can lift a dump truck tire weighing nearly 100 kilograms, but he couldn't lift this stranded dolphin by himself.

When the dolphins were discovered, the Qianjiang River tide had just passed in the afternoon. Due to the special geographical environment, the tide after twenty sections hit the river embankment of Yanguan on the opposite bank and formed an undertow.

"The undertow was just about to come, so we lifted the dolphin up and took it to a watery area closer to the river surface. It swam away with the river water. And it swam very fast, and looked very energetic." Mr. Zhu said that they watched the dolphin swim away on the mudflat before going ashore.

What impressed Mr. Zhu was that after the dolphin swam out for a distance, it turned around and swam up and down in the river for a few times. "At first we thought it was going to get stranded again, but it turned around and left. It felt like the dolphin was a bit human, turning around to express gratitude to us."

Mr. Zhu is a fishing enthusiast who usually fishes by the river when he is free from work. The story of saving the dolphin has spread throughout his fishing circle. "Old fishermen who have been fishing on the Qiantang River for decades said that they have never encountered such a thing."

There are two possibilities for dolphins appearing in Qiantang River

How come dolphins were stranded on the Qiantang River mudflats?

Mr. Zhu speculated that the dolphin was washed onto the beach by the Qiantang River tide. "The location where we found the dolphin was several hundred meters away from the river bank. When we found the dolphin in the afternoon, the tide had not yet reached that location. It is estimated that it was washed ashore during the morning tide today."

The reporter of Chao News checked and found that December 4th is the fourth day of the eleventh lunar month, which is the high tide day in winter, and the early tide time is in the early morning. If Mr. Zhu's inference is correct, it means that more than ten hours may have passed from the time the dolphin was stranded to the time it was discovered.

Chang Changfeng, a senior whale and dolphin expert at Hangzhou Changqiao Polar Ocean Park (captain of the Changqiao Aquatic Wildlife Rescue Team), said that from the video posted by netizens, it can be basically determined that this is a long-beaked dolphin that has been stranded for a long time and has injuries on the surface of its skin.

Public data shows that the long-beaked dolphin is a common dolphin distributed in tropical and subtropical waters in the northern and southern hemispheres, roughly between 40 degrees north latitude and 40 degrees south latitude. It likes to travel in groups, often forming large groups of dozens to hundreds or even thousands of individuals.

Chang Changfeng expressed his concern about the dolphin that appeared in the Qiantang River: "It may have other physiological diseases or be injured."

In November 2023, Chang Changfeng participated in the rescue of stranded finless porpoises in the Qiantang River.

"Dolphins are different from finless porpoises. Finless porpoises can live in waters where fresh and salt water meet, such as the Qiantang River, but dolphins can only live in the sea," he said.

He speculated that there are two possibilities for the dolphins to appear in the Qiantang River. One possibility is that they were carried into the river by the tide and washed up on the beach. "Healthy dolphins are unlikely to be carried away by the tide in the deep sea." Another possibility is that the dolphins' navigation function has problems, causing them to mistakenly enter the Qiantang River. "This also shows that the dolphins have health problems."

The Qiantang River Section 20 where the incident occurred is the tide-rising place of the Qiantang River, and further east is the estuary of Hangzhou Bay. "It may survive in the short term, but if it cannot swim back to the ocean, it may run aground again." Chang Changfeng is a little worried.