Dolphin corpse washes up on island beach

COASTGUARDS were called out to reports of a “Royal fish” dead on an Anglesey beach.

- Andrew Forgrave

They discovered a bottle-nose dolphin washed up on the sands at Traeth Crigyll, the main beach at Rhosneigr.

The dolphins are relatively common off the North West Wales coast but it’s unusual to find them washed up.

The most recent Welsh Marine Mammal Strandings annual report, in 2022, cited just two bottlenose dolphin strandings on the entire Welsh coast.

Most of those found are dead and often their carcasses are in an advanced state of decomposition.

Being large marine mammals, measuring over three metres in length and with substantial muscle mass, it thought they sink to the sea-bed, only to be refloated later by decomposition gasses.

Unusually, the Rhosneigr carcass was relatively fresh.