More dead dolphins found on Mississippi coast
GULFPORT, Mississippi, November 28 (AP) – Two more dead dolphins have washed ashore in Mississippi, but scientists hope an ailing dolphin found in neighboring Alabama will provide answers about what is killing the marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico. Mobi Solangi, director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, said the two dead dolphins washed ashore over a 24-hour period ending Sunday. A female dolphin washed ashore on the beach in Gulfport and the other was a male found on the beach in Pass Christian. Both dolphins were under the age of a year old and were badly decomposed. Officials planned to take samples for testing, but they also are hoping to get answers about what it causing the deaths by testing a sickly dolphin found Wednesday in a marshy area of Fort Morgan, Ala. That dolphin was taken to Gulfport for treatment and to be studied in hopes of providing answers about the spike in dolphin deaths. The 2-year-old male is the first to be found alive since a blown out well caused a massive oil spill last spring, Solangi said. In a typical year, about 30 dead dolphins are found along Mississippi and Alabama beaches, Solangi said. There have been more than 100 over the course of the past year, he said. And more than 540 dolphins have died since February 2010, some three months before the BP oil spill began, when officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration started documenting the unusual number of dolphin deaths. To date no definitive link has been made between the spill and the deaths, which in south Mississippi and Alabama are three to four times what they are in a normal year. “From a scientific standpoint, this is a very significant event,” Solangi said of the dolphin being found alive. He said two dead dolphins were found within a few miles of the survivor. A total of five dolphins have now washed ashore along beaches in South Mississippi and Alabama in the last week. […]
