The carcass of a dead dolphin was found on a local beach in New Jersey this weekend. Officials said half of the creature's body was missing and it had large bite marks which they suspect could have been done by sharks.
Beachgoers discovered the mutilated body of a bottlenose dolphin on the shore of North Wildwood Beach on Saturday.
Marine Mammal Stranding Center founding director Bob Schoelkopf said that the dolphin could likely have been dead for a time before a shark seemingly took a bite of its carcass.
"It was obviously a shark, but it's not uncommon to see when you have a newborn dolphin like that," Schoelkopf said.
"The sharks are out there to clean up the ocean so to speak."
Local beachgoer Karissa Kerns was with her four-year-old son and her friend Gene Alesi when she spotted the dead dolphin on the shore. She said that the clean bite severed the animal's spine in half.
"Yes, we all know there are sharks in the ocean, but there is no harm in being extra cautious when things like this happen. I find it as a sign," Kerns wrote on her social media account.
She said that members of the North Wildwood Beach Patrol had removed the dolphin's carcass from the beach to prevent children from seeing its disfigured state.
Schoelkopf explained that normally lifeguards would contact their organizations whenever a dead animal washes ashore on the beach so that they could identify what could have attacked it, but that did not happen with this latest incident.
The city government of North Wildwood announced that it will provide training for lifeguards on how to contact environmental agencies if similar issues occur in the future.
Earlier this week, two teenagers were mauled by sharks on two separate occasions in North Carolina.
A 13-year-girl suffered life-threatening injuries after being attacked by a shark in Oakland Island on Sunday.
Oakland Island Mayor Betty Wallace said the girl had lost part of her left arm and could possibly lose her left leg as well.
Emergency services were called in an hour later to respond to another shark attack around two miles from where the first occurred.
Wallace said the second report involved a 16-year-old boy who had lost an arm in a shark mauling.
Both victims were airlifted to Wilmington's New Hanover Regional Medical Center where they received medical attention. The two teenagers are now in stable condition according to officials.
