While Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is known as a popular vacation destination in the north-east US, it has built a reputation for an entirely different reason this year: animal strandings.

Dolphins, whales, sea lions and turtles are turning up in large numbers on the beaches of the famous peninsula in a phenomenon that has experts scrambling to execute more rescue operations than ever before. The cause? Changing tides.

Brian Sharp, a senior biologist at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, one of the largest animal conservation organizations in the world, said that the best way humans can understand what it is like for an animal to be stranded “is probably similar to the stress and shock we experience in a car accident”.

Experts say the influx of animals being stranded is due to the increasingly drastic change in tidal levels. On Cape Cod, the difference between low and high tide can be between 9 and 12ft (3-4 meters), which can be fatal to a dolphin if it becomes stuck on land, Sharp said.