A wayward dolphin died Friday night as it swam deep into the heart of New York City's Gowanus Canal, one of the dirtiest waterways in the United States.
Potential rescuers said they couldn't help the mammal as the canal was too polluted for people to enter the water safely.
Marine experts had hoped high tide, beginning around 7.10 pm, would help the dolphin leave the canal. But the animal was confirmed dead shortly before then, said the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, which didn't know how it died.
Battling freezing temperatures and thick pollution, the seven-foot-long short-beaked common dolphin made its way almost two miles inland to the end of the waterway, struggling for air as onlookers and authorities lined the canal.
Yet Robert DiGiovanni, senior biologist at the Riverhead Foundation, said: 'Unfortunately, all we can do is watch and wait for the tide to rise, so the animal can get out on its own.
'It’s not safe for us to get people in the water,' DiGiovanni told the New York Daily News.
Broadcast news reports showed it mired in thick black toxic sludge, and authorities said the animal was injured and bleeding from its dorsal fin.
Bundled-up onlookers took cell photos while a news helicopter hovered overhead.
'He keeps going up and down and going from side to side and people are saying we don’t know what’s taking so long to go in there and save him,' Brooklyn resident Cathy Ryan told the Daily News.
source: dailymail
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