DOLPHIN INJURED BY SHARK WASHES UP TO SAFETY AT MARINE LAB IN TEXAS.

Byline: Elizabeth A. Allen Valley Morning Star

She was sick and weak and had been attacked by sharks, but she washed ashore at the right place.

The sick female dolphin with gashes in her tail and abdomen washed up more than week ago on the very shores of the University of Texas Pan American Coastal Studies Lab, sending visitors and volunteers into action.

They named her Miss Kitty, set her up in a tank and are staying in the water with her around the clock to keep her upright.

``We can't leave the water even for a minute, or she'd roll over and die,'' said Don Hockaday, acting lab director.

Hockaday said she was a full-grown female, but not yet over the hill, according to the condition of her teeth.

A big chunk of flesh ripped out of Miss Kitty's tail and three long gashes on her abdomen indicate a shark attack of some kind, while a smaller chunk of missing flesh points to the work of a ``cookie-cutter shark,'' Hockaday said.

The cookie-cutter shark gets its food by ``sneaking up and nailing larger fish, dolphins, whales, stuff like that,'' and taking out a small piece of flesh without killing or even necessarily injuring the creatures very badly, he said.

Most sharks rarely attack dolphins, and Hockaday said he doesn't know if it happened because the dolphin was already sick.

``We don't know which way it went,'' Hockaday said, ``whether she was sick and weak and that caused the shark to bite her,'' or whether the shark attacked and left wounds that became infected, making her sick.

Whatever the order, Miss Kitty's shark wounds are being left alone. Her infections, her unbalanced blood chemistry and her overall weakness are what threaten her life.

Gladys Porter Zoo veterinarian Michelle Frahm is helping with tests and medical care, Hockaday said, and lab workers are feeding her fish, vitamins and antibiotics. They don't know yet whether it will work.

``In some ways it looks like she's getting better, and in some ways it doesn't look like she's improving,'' Hockaday said.

A volunteer reported Thursday morning that Miss Kitty swam once around the tank on her own Wednesday night, but the volunteers with her Thursday morning said when they let her go she started to roll. She seemed hungry, though.

If Miss Kitty becomes strong enough to travel, she will be taken to the Marine Mammal Stranding Network in Galveston, where workers will rehabilitate her and return her to the wild.

Ann Bull, operations coordinator for the network, said out of nine mammals rescued since 1994, six have been released and two went to aquarium facilities.

One of those was Gilly, nursed by lab volunteers after he was found stranded two years ago in the Laguna Madre. Gilly was a 2-month-old baby, caught in the shallows with a piece of gill net wrapping his beak shut. He was taken to Sea World because he was too young to be released back into the wild, Hockaday said.

``It just would have been a death sentence for him,'' he said.