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Dead Dolphin Washes Up On Staten Island Beach, Witness Says

By Nicholas Rizzi | April 5, 2016 5:02pm
 The dolphin was found Sunday night at the Conference House Park beach.
Dolphin Found Dead Washed Up on Staten Island Beach
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TOTTENVILLE — A dead dolphin was found washed up on a Staten Island beach, a witness and researcher said.

Brittany Lastorino, 21, of New Springville, was walking on the Conference House Park Beach Sunday with her film student friend when they found the dolphin corpse at about 6 p.m.

"We were just walking along, trying to find a place to film and that's when we both saw it," Lastorino said.

"Unless we got close to it you couldn't tell what it was. I got closer to it and I saw the snout and I was very sad."

Lastorino said she didn't know who to contact about the dolphin, so she took several photos of it and posted it online.

Eventually, the head of the Conference House Park contacted her about the photos and then alerted Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, a non-profit that does marine-animal rescues in the area.

The find was first reported by the Staten Island Advance.

Rachel Bosworth, a spokeswoman for the Riverhead Foundation, said rescuers removed the dolphin on Tuesday morning and were taking it back to its headquarters to run tests. A necropsy for the dolphin is scheduled for Friday, Bosworth said.

From the photos, Bosworth said it appears the animal was a bottlenose dolphin, but they won't know for sure until they get it back to the Foundation.

"It was just so bloated and full of tar," Lastornio said. "It looked really, really gross and obviously it was decaying as well."