The rotting corpse of a dolphin has been found on a shoreline in Wirral by a member of the public.

Christophre Monteith was walking his dogs along Thurstaston beach on January 7 when he made the grim discovery.

Mr Monteith, who is in the process of moving back to Heswall after working in North Africa, is a technical dive instructor.

He contacted the Whale and Dolphin Conservation - the leading charity dedicated to the protection of whales and dolphins - who put him in touch with Cetacean Strandings Investigation programme.

The CSIP have since collected the dolphin from the beach and will now carry out an autospy to help determine the cause of the mammal's death.