A dolphin got itself stuck in mud in the Petitcodiac River in New Brunswick, Canada but was rescued by an enterprising fisheries officer who borrowed a canoe to save man’s second best friend.
The dolphin got stuck in an area where the water level changes greatly two times each day, below the Moncton, because of a tidal bore, a phenomenon which causes great washes of water to rush up river in a direction opposite the river’s normal current. Sandra and Jim Davis, who live opposite Moncton in Riverview, spotted the dolphin lying on its side with its head in the mud as the tide was ebbing. Firefighters tried to reach the stranded animal and could not, but a fisheries official used a canoe belonging to a neighbor of the Davis’s to reach it after the tide changed.
Davis and the officer took the dolphin down stream and let it go. The tidal bore was much stronger prior to 1968 when a causeway was constructed which served as both a dam and a bridge between Riverview and Moncton. But, last year the causeway was left open so that salmon could swim up river.
Davis said “if they’re going to keep the gates open, they should have some kind of system where they can perform quick rescue for individuals that are stuck in the mud.”
