340 dolphins strandings along the Gulf since last November 2010 -VIDEO

Tue, Oct 25, 2011

WWL-TV

Channel 4 New Orleans

Maya Rodriguez / Eyewitness News NEW ORLEANS, La.

With an increasing number of dead dolphins showing up along the northern Gulf Coast, scientists are scrambling to keep up and find the reason behind

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BP oil spill may have contributed to Gulf of Mexico dolphin deaths

Oct 28, 2011

Five of the more than 500 dolphins that have washed ashore dead along the Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas over the past two years died from a bacterial infection called Brucella, federal scientists announced Thursday.

And last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill may have played a role, they said.

“The working hypothesis is that the oil negatively impacted the dolphins’ immune system,” said Teri Rowles, coordinator of the National Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. “It could have impaired the dolphins’ ability to respond to the bacterial infection.”

What got scientists’ attention, Rowles said, is that while some previous dolphin deaths have been attributed to Brucella infections, those have never amounted to more than one at a time.

“To see it happen in a cluster . . . is not expected,” she said.

However Rowles cautioned that there could have been other reasons why the rest of the dolphins died in the gulf and pointed out that the investigation is continuing.

“We cannot rule in, or out, a role for the Deepwater Horizon exposure,”…

tampabay.com

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