December 30, 2024 — While Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is known as a popular vacation destination in the north-east US, it has built a reputation for an entirely different reason this year: animal strandings.
Dolphins, whales, sea lions and turtles are turning up in large numbers on the beaches of the famous peninsula in a phenomenon that has experts scrambling to execute more rescue operations than ever before. The cause? Changing tides.
A sea animal is considered “beached” or stranded when it is found alive but injured or stuck on the shore. Without expert assistance, many animals are unable to get back into the water and could die.
Brian Sharp, a senior biologist at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, one of the largest animal conservation organizations in the world, said that the best way humans can understand what it is like for an animal to be stranded “is probably similar to the stress and shock we experience in a car accident”.