The decomposed corpse of an Atlantic white-sided dolphin was discovered Saturday morning in the sand at Popham Beach State Park.
Terri Smith said she stumbled upon the carcass just before 11 a.m. Saturday near stairs that lead from the state park to the beach.
Smith called the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office, which in turn contacted Marine Mammals of Maine, a Harpswell-based organization that responds to marine animals in distress.
Megan Ely of MMM said founder Lynda Doughty had identified photos of the dolphin as an Atlantic white-sided dolphin. She said the corpse was too decomposed to be viable for testing.
Earlier this month, a white-sided dolphin that became beached on Mount Desert Island was rescued by trained responders and returned to the sea, an official with Allied Whale, a marine mammal research group at the College of the Atlantic, said.
White-sided dolphins, which are believed to number in the tens of thousands in the Gulf of Maine and are considered to be abundant, are common seasonally off MDI but prefer deep water, according to Lindsey Jones, Allied Whale’s marine mammal stranding coordinator.
Doughty could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday.