Young Dolphin Put Down After Being Stranded on Texas Shore

Sea creatures are stranded every year on coastlines all over the world, but it's more impactful when it occurs on home soil.

How often to strandings occur?

In the past 45 years, the Marine Mammal Stranding Center reported that over 12% of all stranded animals were bottlenose dolphins.

Reasons for these scary-smart mammals being so prevalent on coastlines and getting stranded on beaches is usually because they are either sick, orphaned or injured.

In fact, NOAA Fisheries highly advises that, if you encounter a beached sea creature, you do not immediately attempt to push it back in the water, as it may contain diseases that could affect other animals.

Instead, you should call your local stranding hotline and they will handle everything. For Texas it's 877 WHALE-HELP... no, seriously, it is.

The stranded dolphin in Texas

So, this little guy was only 3 years old when he was found on the Gulf coast in Sabine Pass and taken to a rehabilitation center for care in Galveston.

Back on Memorial Day weekend, this bottlenose dolphin was determined to be suffering from a neurological condition from which there is no return.

The tough decision was then made to humanely euthanize the dolphin, since the condition did not afford sustainable living.

As sad as this may be, it was done to eliminate any further suffering the dolphin would experience had it been released back into the water.

Rest in peace, dolphin.