Dolphin seen swimming in South River in Old Bridge, NJ dies

OLD BRIDGE, N.J. (WABC) -- A wayward dolphin seen swimming in a New Jersey river last week has died.

Police in Old Bridge confirmed the death. The dolphin was first spotted in the South River in Old Bridge on Wednesday.

Over the last few days people gathered on a nearby bridge to watch the unusual sight.

Experts from the Marine Mammal Stranding Center had hoped it would swim back out into the ocean.

NewsCopter 7 captured images of the dolphin in the river near the Old Matewan Road overpass.

An Eyewitness News viewer captured up-close video of the dolphin:

The South River runs off the Raritan River, which connects to Raritan Bay -- but this dolphin was nowhere close to the bay.

The dolphin made an appearance above water every 1 1/2 to 2 minutes.

Teams with the stranding center initially tried using a boat to coax the roughly 400-pound dolphin toward the Raritan Bay, and the dolphin appeared to finally be doing that Saturday morning. But volunteers who were following the dolphin from a distance soon saw it swim into a shallow area.

They alerted center staffers, who saw the dolphin was having seizures and struggling to breathe. They took it out of the water, and it soon died.

A necropsy will be conducted to determine what caused the dolphin's death.

(Some information from the Associated Press.)