Necropsy Ordered for Oily Dolphin Pulled From Panhandle

(June 24) -- A necropsy will be performed to determine whether oil in the Gulf of Mexico killed a young bottlenose dolphin that became beached in the waters of Florida's Fort Pickens National Park.

The dolphin died Wednesday as it was being transported from the Florida Panhandle beach where it was rescued to the Gulf World Marine Park in Panama City, Fla.

Authorities told the Pensacola News Journal that the dolphin "had some oil on it" but that the necropsy will help determine its precise cause of death.

Members of an Arkansas family said they discovered the oily dolphin in distress in the surf of Fort Pickens, where residents said oil has begun washing ashore. Christy Travis, 41, said she and her family tried to help the sea mammal.

"It was heartbreaking. Everyone was crying,'' Travis told the newspaper. "We had oil all over us."

Two Coast Guard volunteers and a Florida Department of Environmental Protection officer were involved in the three-hour rescue attempt that eventually removed the dolphin from the water as a crowd of beach-goers watched.

"It's terrible. It's awful,'' Pensacola resident Dee Pittman, 57, told the News Journal. "BP doesn't get it. This is sacred ground to us. We got married on these shores. We baptized our children in this ocean. We entrust the ashes of our loved ones in this ocean."

Read more at NWF Daily News.