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“We need close-up, on-the-water photos to see what we can or can’t do about this,” said Robert Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine. “We need to know the species.
“These can’t be taken way offshore or from somebody’s apartment window,” Schoelkopf told CLIFFVIEWPILOT.COM.
IF YOU HAVE ANY PHOTOS OF THE HACKENSACK RIVER DOLPHINS, CONTACT CLIFFVIEWPILOT.COM PUBLISHER/EDITOR JERRY DeMARCO: GerardJDeMarco@gmail.com or 201.943.2794.
Once Schoelkopf’s staff has the photos in hand, they will pass them on to the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal government’s steward, which seeks to protect “free swimming” marine life.
“Unless they’re stranded, we can’t do anything but watch them,” Schoelkopf told CLIFFVIEWPILOT.COM during an interview early Wednesday evening.
“We had this same problem two years ago,” he said, referring to 16 bottlenose dolphins who created a media frenzy when they took up residency for nearly seven months in the Shrewsbury River.
NOAA biologists, saying the dolphins appeared in good health, prohibited any actions to remove them.
Once winter came, three had died and eight were unaccounted for. Observers said five eventually swam out into Sandy Hook Bay.
If the dolphins spotted north of Route 80 in Hackensack remain very long, their chances of survival are extremely slim, Schoelkopf said.
“They wander in from the ocean with tides and currents and food,” he told CLIFFVIEWPILOT.COM. “We think sometimes that they have parasite problems and they’re all hurting, so they move as a group.
“Once they get into an estuary, they’re in a place they never saw before. They can’t navigate. They can’t find enough food. They have no clue.”
“They’re not very good at making it through on their own,” Schoelkopf said, sadly, during his interview with the web site. “Then when you have news crews and helicopters hovering over them, that just makes it worse. They sort of wear themselves out.
“We’re hoping a flood tide will take them out.”
In the meantime, with just four employees covering 1,800 miles of coastline, “our hands are tied,” Schoelkopf said. “We have to wait and see what happens.”
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