Gulf of Mexico dolphin deaths likely due to oil exposure

[Judi Lynn]

Release Date: Apr 12, 2016

Gulf of Mexico dolphin deaths likely due to oil exposure


Study finds higher rate of illness and death in newborns and juvenile bottlenose dolphins after Deepwater Horizon oil spill.


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Bottlenose dolphins have been dying in record numbers in their mothers' womb or shortly after birth in areas affected
by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Photo credit: NOAA Bottlenose dolphins have been
dying in record numbers in their mothers’ womb or shortly after birth in areas affected by the 2010 Deepwater
Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Photo credit: NOAA
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The increased number of stranded stillborn and juvenile dolphins found in the Gulf of Mexico from 2010 to 2013 were likely caused by chronic illnesses in mothers who were exposed to oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill, scientists said in a NOAA statement today (April 12, 2016).

The new study, published in the journal Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, is part of an effort to explain the unusual mortality event in the Gulf involving bottlenose dolphins between early 2010 and continuing into 2014.

Veterinarian Teri Rowles, co-author on the study, is head of NOAA’s Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program, which is charged with determining the causes of these events. Rowles said:

Our new findings add to the mounting evidence from peer-reviewed studies that exposure to petroleum compounds following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill severely harmed the reproductive health of dolphin living in the oil spill footprint in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

More:
http://earthsky.org/earth/gulf-of-mexico-dolphin-deaths-likely-due-to-oil-exposure

[Duppers]

1. Oil

is human scum.

We're killing ourselves and taking the animals with us.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Pregnant bottlenose dolphins give birth to premies, high mortality post BP spill

Pregnant bottlenose dolphins give birth to premies, high mortality post BP spill

Laurie Wiegler
New Orleans Environmental News Examiner

A new study published today shows that in the years following the April, 2010 through July 15, 2010 BP oil spill, an unusually high number of pregnant dolphins gave birth to too small offspring. Many of these premies who were less than 115 cm in size had died by the time their bodies washed up along the shores of the Northern Gulf of Mexico.

Scientists wrote in Inter-Research Diseases of Aquatic Organisms that when comparing 69 bottlenose perinatal dolphin strandings to 26 reference strandings from another period at Florida and South Carolina, far more were found to have died shorty after birth (88 versus 15 percent), have pneumonia not linked to lungworm infection (65 versus 19 percent), and have fetal distress (87 percent versus 27 percent).

"These results support that from 2011 to 2013, during the northern Gulf of Mexico UME (Unusual Mortality Event), bottlenose dolphins were particularly susceptible to late-term pregnancy failures and development of in utero infections."

The news comes almost six years after the BP oil spill began in the Gulf, an event lasting 87 days before the Macondo well was capped. Copious amounts of controversial and highly toxic dispersant Corexit, banned in the UK, were airdropped in affected areas following the spill.

More:
http://www.examiner.com/article/pregnant-bottlenose-dolphins-give-birth-to-premies-high-mortality-post-bp-spill

[notemason]

3. Truly sad :(