(Sun-Herald.com)
Thursday, Feb 24, 2011
Posted on Wed, Feb. 23, 2011
Baby dolphin deaths get feds' attention
By KAREN NELSON
GULFPORT -- NOAA will give high priority to an investigation into the large numbers of baby dolphin deaths along the Mississippi and Alabama coasts, an official told the Sun Herald on Wednesday.
Since the first of the year, 24 stillborn or infant calves have washed ashore in the two states.
What's happening here falls under the formal designation of an Unusual Mortality Event, which requires special scrutiny by a panel of scientists and experts, and gives high priority to samples collected from the dead calves, said Trevor Spradlin, NOAA's national coordinator for Unusual Mortality Events.
Because of that, NOAA will also oversee the laboratory testing, dictate what type of tests will be run and ensure samples are fresh and viable, Spradlin said.
When an incident receives a UME designation NOAA raises the level of scrutiny and an investigative team is formed, he said.
The level of urgency will increase. Getting samples processed within 24 hours will be a priority with all eyes on the investigation, he said.
"You'll see people hustling to make sure the right labs are selected and quality samples collected in a timely manner."
Having an event reach UME designation is usually a time-consuming process that involves a panel of international scientists looking at whether the marine-mammal deaths meet seven criteria, and historical data confirms the event is not typical.
But because early 2010's cold weather caused dolphin, manatee and turtle deaths, the process had already been put into motion. Then the BP oil spill hit, instantly making the northern Gulf region a UME, Spradlin said..
So when the calves' deaths escalated, something Coast researchers are calling an anomaly, they fell under the UME designation and are being given the highest priority, he said.
Of specific concern to local researchers is these stillborn or infant dolphins are dying before the birthing season for bottlenose dolphins gets into full swing in March.
Also, in the first two months of 2009 there was only one calf death reported and in the first two months of 2010 only two.
In the first two months of this year, there have been 24 reported to the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport. The institute has collected tissue samples and conducted necropsies.
The BP oil spill's timing coincided with early gestation months for dolphins in the northern Gulf.
But scientists caution about jumping to conclusions because a number of factors can cause dolphin deaths.
There have been 13 Unusual Mortality Events in the Gulf since 1990, said Blair Mase, NOAA's stranding coordinator for this region.
"What's unusual about this event is that we're seeing mostly calves," Mase said Wednesday.
She said NOAA does not know if any of the calves were stillborn, or if they died in the first minutes, hours or days of their lives, when they are most fragile.
The cold winter water temperatures may have contributed, she said.
Mase said from observation and early data collected from the freshest carcasses scientists should be able to determine fairly soon whether the animals were stillborn.
However, it likely will take months to draw a conclusion about the deaths partly because of the long process of determining the right labs to handle tissue samples and what tests will need to be run.
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