"Dolphins Receive A New Center for Survival in Cape Cod" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a story about Dolphins getting their own hospital and rescue center in Cape Cod, Mass.  As it is now, members of the marine mammal team from the International Fund for Animal Welfare rush to a Cape Cod beach to help a stranded dolphin or porpoise.  They have no choice but to treat the endangered animal on site and then release it immediately.  But...that is about to change.  The organization, which protects animals worldwide, has opened a first-of-a-kind short-term dolphin hospital on Cape Cod.  It hopes it will not only improve survivability rates, but also enhance the research it has developed over 25 years.  According to Brian Sharp, the director of the rescue team, simply caring for them at the scene is often not enough.  They need additional diagnostics.  If stranded marine mammals are stressed, in shock and dehydrated,  treatment and recovery time is not always enough.  With this International Care Unit for dolphins, they will be able to get them the treatment that's needed, then be able to release them quickly," he said.  There are already marine mammal rehabilitation centers that can take care of animals for months or even years, but the goal of this new facility is to release them back into the ocean within a few days, he said.  "This is the first time that this has been attempted," Brian said.  "There are more live marine mammal strandings on Cape Cod than anywhere else in the world.  The welfare fund has responded to more than 400 live stranded dolphins, whales and porpoises in the region in the past five years alone!" the organization said in a news release.  Cape Cod is a good habitat for dolphins, but a risky one.  Its geography is basically a hook-shaped spit of sand jutting into the ocean and can make dolphin navigation difficult and 12-foot tides can quickly expose a mile of beach.  The 4,200-square-foot Dolphin Rescue Center is in a renovated retail space.  It includes an 1,800-square-foot rehabilitation area with two treatment pools 15 feet across and a veterinary laboratory.  The public will not be permitted to have direct contact with the animals being cared for, but there is also an education center where visitors will be able to watch the recovering animals from a monitor.  Hopefully the new hospital and rescue center will help more animals survive in the future.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.