Dolphins were scared ashore theory

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British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) said many of the dolphins had no fish in their stomach, which adds weight to the theory that they were panicked by an underwater disturbance.

A common reason for the animals being stranded is when they are chasing fish - but if they were feeding, there would be clear evidence of it, a BDMLR spokesman said.

Twenty-six dead dolphins were found beached around the Percuil river near Falmouth, Cornwall, on Monday morning in one of the worst mass strandings ever in the UK.

Tony Woodley, spokesman for BDMLR, said: "Very few had anything in their stomachs. That adds weight to the theory that they were scared ashore. It is another unusual factor in this extremely unusual stranding."

Post-mortems have been completed on 15 dolphins and detailed test results are not expected for some weeks, Mr Woodley said.

The news comes after the Royal Navy admitted it was carrying out training exercises with a submarine and survey ship using sonar in Falmouth Bay.

The Ministry of Defence would not comment on what training the submarine was doing but said it would have relied on passive sonar during the exercise and not low frequency active sonar.

An MoD spokesman said the survey vessel was using "short-range side-scan sonar" for sea bed mapping trials but added that this was "extremely unlikely" to have affected the dolphins.

The spokesman confirmed there were live firing exercises off Eddystone Light, south of Plymouth, on Friday.