A dolphin washed up on Hallets Point Friday morning (covered in a black bag). Photo by Kirstyn Brendlen
Feb. 28, 2025 By Kirstyn Brendlen
A deceased dolphin washed up on the shore in Astoria on Friday morning, weeks after a pair of the marine mammals were first spotted in the East River.
The animal was spotted on the beach at Hallett’s Cove, near the Astoria ferry landing, early on Feb. 28. By about 9:30 a.m. on Friday, an officer from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation had covered the dolphin with a plastic tarp and temporarily closed the beach to the public.
Its cause of death was not immediately clear — the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society picked the body up and will conduct a necropsy in the coming days, according to AMSEAS executive director Robert DiGiovanni.
The deceased dolphin was a Common Dolphin, DiGiovanni said, the same species that had been spotted in the river earlier this month. A DEC officer on the scene said the animal appeared to be about seven feet long.
Photos of the dolphin posted on Reddit showed some blood on the dolphin’s tail, but DiGiovanni said those injuries are “common” when a marine mammal becomes stranded on shore and may not be indicative of how it died. The dolphin may have been dead for several hours by the time it washed up, as AMSEAS had received reports of a dead dolphin in the river on Thursday night, but DiGiovanni could not say for sure that the report was about the same animal.
Though New York City doesn’t seem like a natural home for marine animals like whales and dolphins, sightings have become fairly common in recent years. That’s thanks in part to long-term conservation and cleanup efforts, said Maxine Montello, executive director of the New York Marine Rescue Center.
“[Common dolphins] definitely get their name because they are a common species around this area, and it’s not abnormal for them to be utilizing the East River,” she explained. “The thought is that they’re probably following some kind of food source, likely fish, within the East River.”
But while the city’s waterways are cleaner and safer for wildlife than they were years ago, there are still significant risks for marine mammals. They’re susceptible to accidental boat strikes and get tangled in fishing equipment, and sometimes die because they’ve ingested “marine debris” from humans and can’t absorb nutrients from their food, DiGiovanni said.
People sometimes approach dolphins on jet skis and boats to get a closer look, Montello said.
“…ultimately, it’s a form of harassment for these animals and can really alter their behavior or spook them to go in the wrong direction,” she explained.
Most stranding incidents in and around New York City are due to human interaction, Montello said.
So far this year, AMSEAS has responded to four dead common dolphins in the New York City area and 19 dead and stranded animals overall. Last year, the organization dealt with more than 300 stranded animals, including dolphins, whales, and sea turtles.
The initial necropsy will likely be done within a day, DiGiovanni said, and AMSEAS will then collect various tissues and send them to pathologists for further testing. It may take months for the results to come back, he said.
Both Montello and Giovanni urged New Yorkers to keep their distance from marine life and to report any sightings to AMSEAS and the Marine Rescue Center.
“It’s always nice to see the positive stories, but we definitely monitor all of these cases closely, especially in areas that are high-traffic, [with], so human-marine mammal crossover,” she said.
Giovanni said AMSEAS appreciates reports of sightings and when locals stop seeing animals regularly — an absence of data is still data, he said. New Yorkers can report marine animals, alive or dead, to sightings@amseas.org and can report dead or injured animals to (631) 369-9829.
“But stay back from these animals, it is required that [people] stay 50 feet away,” DiGiovanni said. “It’s not just because it’s the law; it’s for their safety. These animals don’t know what you’re doing if you’re in a boat, so you don’t want to be the one that pushes them toward shore just because you wanted to look at them.”
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