Good Samaritans banded together for an amazing rescue after a pair of dolphins became stranded in dangerously shallow tides.
The pair were rescued on Sunday following a high and dry stranding in Goegrup Lake, where members of Estuary Guardians Mandurah worked tirelessly to move the pair back out to sea.
Elsewhere on Monday morning, a massive sperm whale had beached itself on a sandbank 70m offshore at Rockingham Beach — a day after it was seen frolicking with swimmers close to shore at Port Beach.
The juvenile dolphins, Solo and Tswizzle, are regulars in the Serpentine River and often venture into the lake.
Solo is understood to be blind in his left eye.
“We are in the middle of extreme low tides, one of the worst we have seen. While rescue group volunteers do all they can to scan low tide areas, there are many areas we cannot reach, and drones cannot fly due to high winds,” Estuary Guardians Mandurah said.
“We will continue to do what we can to cover as much area as possible while the dangerous tides continue.
“We thank those also keeping an eye out across the shallows.”
They also stressed that locals should be on the eye out until at least February because there is “always” a threat of strandings with the tides so low.
“Until the end of February, there is always a threat of strandings in our area,” they said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Parks and Wildlife Service said that this unfortunately happens because the dolphins follow fish upstream and into the lake, and when the tide recedes, they get stranded.
Mandurah is understood to be a hotspot for dolphin strandings.