A pod of stranded dolphins have been rescued -- again -- after washing ashore in Newfoundland for a second day.

After the pod was saved Sunday, seven beached dolphins again had to be towed back into the water the next day.

Sunday’s rescue came at the hands of beachgoers who carried the stranded animals back out into the water. On Monday, a fishery guardian alerted a search-and-rescue team when he noticed the dolphins beached about eight kilometres from the site of the original stranding.

Jan Woodford, a spokesperson for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said it’s not clear whether it was the same group in both cases, but said she has an idea of how it happened.

“The bay in this area is really, really shallow,” she said. “The dolphins came in, and as the water receded they got stranded.”

The two rescues happened on opposite shores of the same bay near Stephenville, N.L., Woodford said there are a few explanations as to why so many dolphins were close enough to the shore to be stranded.

“Our scientists explain that, basically, these are very social animals, so they stay in groups,” she said. “If the leader goes to shore, the rest might just follow him.”

She said the group might have also been hunting. By trapping their prey in shallow water, they could have inadvertently trapped themselves. Either way, she said, they’re lucky to be alive.

“We believe the animals were stranded out there for almost two hours. What happens to them is they can actually suffer heat stroke,” Woodford said. “When they’re taken out of that cold environment they can overheat very quickly.”

The Barachois volunteer search and rescue group, which is usually assembled to help humans, used four-wheelers equipped with sleds to slide the animals back into the ocean. The team stayed with the animals in the water for about an hour as they slowly became well enough to swim again.

And while it isn’t the first time beached animals have needed rescue, it doesn’t usually happen again so soon.

“It happens often enough that this isn’t a shock,” Woodford said. “But that it happened two days in a row? That’s unusual.”