Dolphin Eludes Capture Efforts in Oxnard Canal

A disoriented dolphin that cornered itself at the end of an Oxnard canal eluded repeated attempts to snare it Wednesday, and rescuers vowed to go after it again today.

The gray mammal, about 200 pounds and 4 feet long, swam nearly five miles from the start of the narrow waterway at Mandalay Bay to a large pool inside the Mandalay Generating Station, just off Harbor Boulevard.

“This is one for the books,” said Joe Cordero, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce. “We usually get harbor seals or California sea lions or sea turtles, but this is our first dolphin rescue up there.”

The dolphin was first spotted about 7 a.m. Wednesday by Harold Brennan, a plant mechanic who was using a large wire basket to scoop seaweed and debris from the canal. The plant, owned by Reliant Energy, uses the canal water to cool scalding-hot generator pipes.

“He was actually very playful,” Brennan said as he sat inside the cab of a towering crane that would be used in a rescue effort to hoist the animal to safety. “Every time I’d scoop, he’d start jumping.”

After the discovery, plant officials immediately contacted the Organization for the Respect and Care of Animals, whose volunteers specialize in such rescue efforts.

For two hours Wednesday, a dozen local ORCA members--two in an inflatable boat and several more along the rocky shoreline--tried trapping the dolphin in a 50-foot fishing net.

Rescuers had rigged the net on one side with weights and used buoys on the other side to create a floating curtain that the dolphin could swim into. But the creature eluded the net.

The operation was halted about 6 p.m. as darkness arrived and the water level in the canal started to rise with the ocean’s tide, officials said.

Rescuers plan to return today and continue the effort.

If the dolphin is rescued, it will be loaded onto a flatbed truck and taken to the Laguna Beach marine center, where biologists will run several tests to determine whether the creature is healthy enough for rehabilitation.

Cordero will ultimately decide whether the mammal will be treated or euthanized. Of concern is whether the dolphin has ingested a naturally occurring sea toxin that has been blooming in algae off the coast and killing dozens of marine mammals in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

Veterinarian Samuel Dover, an ORCA volunteer, said the dolphin appeared to be breathing normally.

“Sometimes this happens because they take a wrong turn or they are chasing fish or it’s a disease,” Dover said. “There are several excuses and reasons.”

In the last month, however, animal rescuers have recovered more than a dozen infected dolphins that beached themselves along the Ventura County coastline. Most did not survive, officials said.

“They strand themselves and often have seizures,” said ORCA volunteer Edward Burgus.

Cordero was not optimistic, saying because the dolphin traveled so far in the canal and had not tried to return, he believed it was no longer healthy.

“The odds are slim it will survive” if it has been infected, Cordero said in an interview from his office in Long Beach.

Meanwhile, a dozen Reliant officials spent most of Wednesday watching the dolphin swim around and surface for air. Many wondered how the creature had reached the plant.

Company officials and rescue volunteers believe there is an underwater gate to stop such intrusions, but city and harbor officials say they are not aware of any such gate.

If one does not exist, company officials said they would consider installing one.

Volunteers and officials both said sea mammals have been trapped at least twice at the Mandalay facility and at the company’s power plant at Ormond Beach. Those instances, however, involved an elephant seal and a sea turtle.

“I deal with ORCA all the time but it’s mostly been at other sites,” plant manager G.K. Malik said. “We’ve never had a dolphin before.”