(Fox 8 TV, New Orleans)
Scientist: dolphin deaths investigation taking too long, carcasses left in freezer for 1 year after oil spill
Reported by: Bigad Shaban, Reporter
Email: bshaban@fox8tv.net
Last Update: 5/26 11:08 pm
Government delays to answer dolphin deaths
Slideshow
One of the dolphins at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies
In captivity at the Institute of Marine Mammal Studies (IMMS) in Gulfport, Mississippi, dolphins Bo and Buster appear safe from whatever seems to be killing so many other dolphins in the area in the wake of the Gulf oil disaster.
"We've had a large number of dolphins and, then suddenly after that, a very large number of turtles die and are continuing to die."
95 dolphins, including 71 calves, have washed up dead along the Alabama and Mississippi coasts so far this year, according to IMMS. There have also been 209 sea turtle deaths. In just the past 5 months, the deaths of dolphins and turtles have already surpassed those seen in all of last year.
In 2010, there were 93 dead dolphins, of those 21 were calves, and 200 dead sea turtles.
Dr. Moby Solangi heads IMMS, which collects and sorts samples from nearly every dolphin that washes up along the Alabama and Mississippi coasts.
Solangi, however, says he and staff have been told by the federal government not to talk publically about their findings.
"And we have to turn in all the samples to the federal government for them to analyze," Solangi said.
The problem, he says, is those samples have been just sitting inside the freezer at IMMS.
"We've had them for a year," he said.
The specimens were only picked up by the federal government just last month.
"This has been the frustrating part to be able to move the process fast, but it isn't," Solangi said. "Certainly, the big event that has happened is the oil spill, but you can't rule out other aspects—infectious diseases, bio toxins, the environment."
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is the federal agency leading the investigation. FOX 8 spoke to Dr. Teri Roles, Director of Marine Mammal Health & the Stranding response program for NOAA, by telephone for answers.
FOX 8: "Why wait almost a year before you get the sample. They were just in a freezer this whole past year?"
Roles: "We did pick up the samples and we have been doing that, and some of those samples have been submitted throughout."
FOX 8: Well, I guess I'll stop you there. Do you deny the fact that you just picked them up last month?
Roles: No, we will be going back monthly for many of the facilities picking up samples as we go along."
Roles says NOAA won't develop and release its report until the dolphin death rate goes back to normal. Until then, she says, the agency will continue testing dead dolphins.
The abnormally high death rate, according to Roles, began in February 2010—two months before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. Roles also says NOAA is reluctant to give out details of its findings because of pending criminal and civil litigation related to the deepwater horizon explosion.
"Samples are still coming in and we're still contributing samples for analysis," Roles said.
"To take samples and disappear from the discussion is regrettable," said scientist Dr. Bob Thomas, who heads the Center for Environmental Communication at Loyola University.
"We've gone months and months and months after the first reports of dolphins dying and seeing aborted baby dolphins with no information."
The lack of information is perhaps felt no more than at IMMS, even though researchers there are the people actually collecting the samples. Without precious analysis from the government, they say, the true cause of the dolphin deaths remains unknown.
"Unfortunately, there are a lot of bureaucratic issues that are slowing down the process," Solangi said. "The common question is `what's happening?'"
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