"To find all eight of them on your doorstep is just unheard of," said Moby Solangi, president of the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport. "When we first saw them, they were really starving. When they saw their trainers, they were absolutely flipping."

Since Saturday, when the dolphins were found, their trainers, along with a dolphin rescue team from Florida and a marine biologist from Seattle, have been boating out into the Gulf of Mexico three times a day to visit the school of dolphins. The six females and two males are fed fish filled with vitamins and medicine to help treat their infections. None of the dolphins suffered life-threatening injuries, Solangi said, but they all endured multiple scrapes and lacerations.

The team of rescuers coaxes the dolphin to a pair of floating mats by using whistles and banging buckets together, sounds the animals learned to associate with eating while in captivity, Solangi said.

"More than likely, they’ve lost all their hunting skills, their social skills," said Jeff Potter, a marine biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service who participated in rescues following the tsunami last December. "The biggest thing is to try to get some food in them. We’re trying to build up their strength before we actually try to reacquire them." The dolphins, trained to respond with flips and the like to the delight of show crowds, are being taught how to beach themselves on the mats, which is how the rescuers eventually plan to secure them for transport to safety.