Navy test firing strands dolphins

The Royal Navy carried out live-firing exercises off Cornwall just hours before 25 dolphins died by stranding themselves in a nearby river, the British Ministry of Defense said yesterday.

As initial autopsies suggested the dolphins might have been scared or disorientated, defense officials said training exercises with a submarine and survey ship using sonar had also been held in Falmouth Bay.

Officials said the exercises were "highly unlikely" to have been the cause of the deaths, Britain's biggest mass stranding for nearly 30 years.