A PORPOISE that washed up onto Morecambe Bay sands and died moments before rescuers reached it was a pregnant female.

Bay Search and Rescue were called out by HM Coastguard at 6.35pm on April 8 to Jenny Brown's Point, Silverdale, to aid the stranded 1.5m porpoise.

But despite the efforts of the local residents to refloat it, the porpoise died shortly before rescuers reached it.

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The team handed it to the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme for a post mortem which found it was a '155cm long adult female in good nutritional condition'.

They added it was also pregnant with a 'near full term male foetus'.

The cause of death remains unknown as they wait for bacteriological examination results.