[MARINE_BIOLOGY_INTERNATIONAL] Don't jump to conclusions in Gulf dolphin deaths

(Yahoo! News – opinion)

BP Oil Spill May Not Be Cause of Mass Dolphin Deaths

Lauren Finnegan
1 hr 1 min ago

Along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, 60 baby bottlenose dolphins have been found dead. The dolphins have been showing up on the coast since Jan. 1, and many are quickly linking the BP Gulf oil spill and this loss of sea life together. And, yes, it could have very well been the oil that caused these dolphin fetuses to die, considering that the average gestation period for the bottlenose dolphin is 12 months, making the most vital part of their growth able to have been compromised by the toxic chemicals that were leaking into the sea. But before we jump to conclusions and start blaming BP, we need to let the scientists do their work.
In researching mass dolphin deaths, I found this is not the first time we have seen many of these animals die within a time period. There have been many other cases of mass dolphin deaths, including the supposed suicide of about 152 dolphins in Cornwall who were found to have all ingested mud. As environmentalists tried to help these creatures back to sea, they refused and beached themselves. The cause for this unusual behavior was blamed on some kind of underwater disturbance that would have upset these dolphins.
Another case of mass dolphin deaths came in 1987 when dead dolphins were washing ashore from New Jersey to Florida. After much research into the deaths, it was found the dolphins died from eating fish that were full of the red tide algae that is poisonous. This cause of death was not discovered until about two years after the animals were found on the beaches across the U.S.
So although it may take years before we find out the cause of these deaths, we must make sure we don't prematurely blame anyone. The mass death of sea life is not all that uncommon, and the reason for the large scale media attention on this mass dolphin death is because of the possible link to BP. One would hope that this cause for concern over the dolphin deaths in the Gulf of Mexico could carry over to the rest of these cases.
And if the BP oil spill is shown to be the cause of this tragedy, I hope the company will stand up and take responsibility for this. The U.S. government needs to hold it responsible financially as well as hold it morally responsible to help to breed and reintroduce the amount of dolphins harmed by its oil spill into the Gulf. Louisiana and the surrounding areas have already lost a lot from the negligent actions of BP, and the wildlife that depend on us need to be protected at all costs.
Lauren Finnegan graduated from Hawaii Pacific University with a bachelor's degree in political science and has an insider's perspective on the military because of her role as a military wife who has lived around the country.
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