By BILL BARLOW/Special to the Sentinel
OCEAN CITY – Tom Van Vleck of Ocean City regularly walks the beach, often photographing some of what he finds along the way, whether it be a burrfish or an interesting sand sculpture.
Last week, he found two large marine animals on the beach in front of the Port-o-Call Hotel near 15th Street, a mammal and a reptile.
Van Vleck found a large loggerhead turtle washed up onto the beach. He later found a dolphin in the same area. Both were dead.
According to Bob Schoelkopf of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, it was likely mere coincidence that the two animals washed ashore close to each other on the same day, June 30.
“It just happened that way,” he said.
The dolphin, which weighed 317 pounds, was dead before it reached the beach. He does not know the cause of death. The remains have been taken to a state laboratory for further investigation, he said.
Bottlenose dolphins are a common sight off the beaches of Ocean City and throughout New Jersey in the summer. They can often be seen hunting for fish or even playing in the waves. But according to Schoelkopf, this animal was part of a population that typically remains farther offshore.
They tend to be larger than their cousins, reaching more than 12 feet in length and up to 1,100 pounds.
“The oceanics get really big,” he said.
The turtle weighed about 75 pounds, Schoelkopf said. It was far too decomposed to discover any cause of death.
“We don’t have a cause on either one,” he said.
That animal was buried on the beach.
This has not been a particularly bad year for dolphin deaths, Schoelkopf said. The numbers have been close to average. Back in 2013, hundreds of dolphins died along the East Coast, in what officials declared an “unusual mortality event” that was linked to a virus. A similar die-off took place in 1987-88.
This year, the long-running stranding center faces a different issue. Schoelkopf, the founder and director of the organization, said the center is facing financial difficulties. The center had to cancel fundraisers because of COVID-19 and donations are down, likely because of the economic downturn that accompanied the pandemic.
He said the center is understaffed and under stress.
The center launched in 1978 with Schoelkopf and his wife, Shelia Dean, along with a small paid staff and volunteers. The center responds to more than 5,500 strandings each year, including whales, dolphins, seals and sea turtles.
For more information about the center, see mmsc.org where there is also information about donations and how to report a stranding.