Dead dolphin toll rises to 60 on Gulf Coast
By Brett Michael Dykes brett Michael Dykes Fri Feb 25, 1:48 pm ET
In the latest disturbing development from the spill-battered Gulf Coast, reports have been rolling in that the corpses of baby dolphins are washing up on beaches in the region. The dolphin death toll since January 15 has now reached 60--a number 12 times higher than the average death toll along 200 miles of coastline stretching from Louisiana to Florida. And scientists are scrambling to determine a cause for what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) termed "an unusual mortality event." Roughly half of the dolphin corpses collected thus far are calves.
"We are on high alert here," Moby Solangi, director of the private Institute of Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Mississippi, told Reuters. "When we see something strange like this happen to a large group of dolphins, which are at the top of the food chain, it tells us the rest of the food chain is affected."
Of course, the likeliest culprit would seem to be last year's BP oil disaster, but until researchers can fully test tissue samples taken from the dolphin corpses no one can make a direct link to the spill. However, NOAA scientist Blair Mase, said that the necropsies already performed on the dolphins indicate that they died from "something environmental" that took place in the past year.
While the recent figures are alarming, it should be noted that the recent high-water mark for dolphin deaths in the Gulf of Mexico was set off the coast of Texas in 2007, three years prior to the BP spill. in 2007 off the coast of Texas. In a one-month span back then, researchers recorded 68 dolphin deaths.
(Photo: AP/Wendy Hatchett) |
