Dolphin surfaces in the Scheldt, but does not survive
Early March, a passer-by found a dead dolphin washed ashore at the Scheldekaai in Burcht. The press attention for this exceptional find brought an even more remarkable fact to light: at the end of January, a ferryman had filmed a live dolphin further upstream in the Scheldt.
It was a strange surprise for Kobe Vercruyssen when he found a dead dolphin along the Scheldt in Burcht on 7 March 2025. The animal was lying about fifteen metres from the quay wall, and threatened to float back into the river with the rising tide. The news spread quickly via social media. Thanks to the quick response of Kobe and René Maes, who had rushed to the scene in the meantime, the carcass was tied to the quay wall with a rope so that it would not be lost.
After reporting to various authorities, the shelter ‘Wilde Dieren in Nood/Vogelopvangcentrum Brasschaat-Kapellen’ (VOC) eventually arrived on the scene to pick up the dolphin. The Antwerp fire brigade had to intervene to get the animal out of the water, after which the VOC brought the dolphin to the shed of the Agency for Nature and Forests (ANB) in Kalmthout for further examination.
Identification and cause of death
Analysis by ANB staff and the Mammal Working Group of Natuurpunt Antwerpen Noord & Kempen, in consultation with the Institute for Natural Sciences, determined that the animal was a young female with a length of 166 cm and an estimated weight of 70 to 80 kg. The skin was largely gone, making it difficult to determine what species it was. The teeth best match a common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), but a striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba) could not be completely ruled out.
Because the carcass was already in an advanced state of decomposition, no exact cause of death could be determined. It was eventually taken away for destruction.
“The discovery and recovery of the Burcht dolphin was an example of rapid and efficient cooperation between citizens and various organisations, including Natuurpunt Waasland, Wilde Dieren in Nood/Vogelopvangcentrum Brasschaat-Kapellen, the Agency for Nature and Forests, the Institute of Natural Sciences and the Mammal Working Group of Natuurpunt Antwerpen Noord & Kempen. Despite the sad circumstances, this event offered a unique opportunity to study a rare marine mammal up close,” says Johan Neegers of the aforementioned mammal working group.
A surprising twist
The press attention that followed brought to light an even stranger fact, if possible. The discovery of the dead dolphin in Burcht reminded ferryman Nils Verbeeck of a special encounter that had happened to him more than a month earlier on the Scheldt, a long way upstream from Burcht. It prompted him to contact the Institute of Natural Sciences about it.
Nils appeared to have seen nothing less than a living dolphin in Hamme on January 31, 2025, and made a short movie of it that proved this beyond doubt. From the images it could be concluded that it was a common dolphin. It is very likely that this was the same animal that was found dead in Burcht 35 days later.
Common – and striped – dolphins are not adapted to life in rivers. They are species with a pelagic lifestyle, which means that they prefer the open sea and generally stay far away from coasts. Initially, it was suspected that the dead animal from Burcht had been drifted into the Scheldt by the tides, but this had to be adjusted based on the observation in Hamme. Why this dolphin swam so far up the Scheldt is not known. On the other hand, it is less surprising that she did not survive her visit to the river.
Rare appearance
Jan Haelters of the Institute of Natural Sciences explains how special the find is: “After the bottlenose dolphin and the white-beaked dolphin, the common dolphin is the most expected dolphin species in Belgian waters. Nevertheless, it remains a rare appearance here. In the past ten years, only a few cases of living common dolphins are known from our country, with an additional handful of observations where the identity could not be determined with certainty.”
Strandings of common dolphins are also rare in Belgium. On 22 December 2023, a recently deceased and therefore easily recognisable individual washed up in Ostend, but the other recent dolphins that possibly belonged to this species (one each in 2016, 2019 and 2020, and two more in 2023) were too decomposed to be assigned to this species with certainty. The common dolphin of Burcht and Hamme is not the first to be observed in the Scheldt, but as far as is known it is the one that swam the furthest up the river. In the Dutch part of the Scheldt, a common dolphin was observed near 's-Gravenpolder from the end of July to the beginning of September 2002. This animal was found dead in Saeftinghe on 8 April 2003.
The striped dolphin is even rarer in Belgian waters. This species has only been documented here with certainty twice: a stranding of a dead animal in 1981 and a sighting of a live animal from 15 to 19 May 2009. The latter also swam in the Scheldt (Doel and Verrebroek), did not survive this either and was found dead on 21 May of that year.
All persons and institutions involved are thanked for the smooth cooperation and flow of information. Forest rangers Bram Vereecken and Lucas Bergmans of the Agency for Nature and Forests respectively ensured the rapid internal reporting of the dolphin and the general coordination of the recovery and measurement of the carcass. Wilde Dieren in Nood/Vogelopvangcentrum Brasschaat-Kapellen ensured the transport to the ANB warehouse in Kalmthout.
Additional thanks go to Johan Neegers (Mammal Working Group Natuurpunt Antwerpen Noord & Kempen), René Maes (Natuurpunt Waasland), Jan Haelters (Institute of Natural Sciences) and Jaap van der Hiele (Stichting ReddingsTeam Zeedieren, the Netherlands) for their cooperation on the text, and to Nils Verbeeck (Boottochten Jan Plezier), René Maes, Arlette Strubbe (Natuurpunt Waasland), Dafne Van Mieghem (Wilde Dieren in Nood/Vogelopvangcentrum Brasschaat-Kapellen) and Geert Steel (Mammal Working Group Natuurpunt Antwerpen Noord & Kempen) for providing the images.