http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46840201/#46840201

NBC Nightly News
March 23, 2012

Dolphins still sick from BP oil spill

Scientists say the dolphin population in Louisiana’s Barataria Bay, one of the areas hit hardest and longest by the BP oil spill, are severely ill. NBC’s Anne Thompson reports.

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http://blog.al.com/live/2012/03/louisiana_dolphins_are_very_si.html

Al.com

Louisiana dolphins are ‘very sick;’ study of ‘unusual mortality event’ continues
Published: Friday, March 23, 2012, 3:48 PM Updated: Friday, March 23, 2012, 5:48 PM
By Ben Raines, Press-Register

Dolphins swim off Dauphin Island during the summer of 2011. An ongoing die-off of dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico has resulted in 693 carcasses washing ashore. Scientists believe many more dolphins likely died but were never recovered. An investigation is underway to determine whether the BP oil spill is to blame. (Press-Register/Ben Raines)

Dolphins captured in Louisiana as part of a health study related to the BP oil spill were “very sick,” according to federal scientists.

Thirty-two dolphins caught in August in Louisiana’s heavily oiled Barataria Bay were found to suffer from a range of symptoms including anemia, low body weight, hormone deficiencies, liver disease, and lung problems.

Those symptoms are typical of mammals exposed to oil in laboratory experiments, scientists said.

“The dolphins we sampled from Barataria Bay are not in good health. Some are very sick,” said Lori Schwacke, who led the dolphin study for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “We are concerned that many of the Barataria bay dolphins are in such poor health they may not survive.”

Scientists recorded abnormally low levels of cortisol and other hormones produced by the adrenal gland. Those hormones work together to control immune function, metabolism, and the body’s response to stress.

“These low levels of hormones suggest adrenal deficiency,” Schwacke said, explaining that adrenal issues are also associated with low blood sugar, low blood pressure and heart conditions. “These health concerns have not been observed in other parts of the south Atlantic and Gulf coasts.”

Since February 2010, the number of dead dolphins washing ashore in the Gulf has been much higher than normal, scientists said. A total of 693 dolphins have washed up in the last two years.

The “unusual mortality event” continues in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, though the number of dead animals found along the Florida Panhandle has returned to normal.

While Schwacke said it was too soon to confirm a connection to the oil spill, she noted that the health issues in the Barataria Bay population are similar to problems seen in mink that were exposed to fuel oil during laboratory tests.

The testing was conducted as part of the ongoing Natural Resources Damage Assessment, which will form the heart of the government’s legal case against BP.

The NOAA testing involved 32 dolphins out of a total population of about 1,000 living in Barataria Bay. The area was selected because it was one of the most heavily oiled areas on the Gulf Coast.

So far, 180 dolphins have washed up dead in Barataria, or about 18 percent of the population there, including some of those that had been caught and tested by NOAA.

Teri Rowles, the NOAA veterinarian in charge of investigating dolphin strandings, said the agency was trying to gain similar information about the health of dolphins in Alabama and Mississippi but had not yet studied live animals. Many of the tests conducted in Louisiana required live animals.

“Most of the animals that come in dead are more decomposed. Only 73 of the 693 have been live or freshly dead where we could get a good body condition,” Rowles said.

Rowles said NOAA had ruled out biotoxins, such as algae blooms related to red tide, and a measles-like virus common in dolphins, as being responsible for the ongoing die off.

Based on the findings in Barataria Bay, the agency has advised scientists in the Gulf States to be on the lookout for similar symptoms.

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http://www.fox8live.com/news/local/story/Dolphins-from-oiled-bay-show-health-problems/MOKQqihGTk6RWjhhyHNMFQ.cspx

Fox 8 Live/WVUE

Dolphins from oiled bay show health problems
One of the dolphins at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Scientists say 32 dolphins taken from Louisiana’s Barataria Bay were in overall poor health, though they say their studies don’t yet definitely tie the illnesses to the 2010 Gulf oil spill.

Lori Schwacke of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday that the dolphins – caught in August 2011 – were underweight, anemic and showed signs of liver and lung disease.

Another common problem was a low level of stress-fighting hormones. Thirty-one of the 32 are still alive.

Schwacke said the hormone problem cannot be surely tied to the oil spill but is “consistent with oil exposure to other mammals.”

Scientists have been investigating an unusually large number of dolphin deaths in the Gulf of Mexico since February 2010 – two months before the BP oil spill began.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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http://planetoceannews.com/

Planet Ocean News

Barataria Bay Dolphins Exposed to Oil Are Seriously Ill

According to The New York Times, dolphins exposed to the Deepwater Horizon Disaster’s combined effects of crude oil and chemical dispersants, “are seriously ill.”

In August of 2010, just after the wellhead was capped, I joined The Sea Turtle Restoration Project’s Dr. Chris Pincetich, Captains Al Walker and Terry Palmisano, and Scott Porter of Ecorigs to see how much oil was still in Barataria Bay, in the Mississippi Delta. We found much more than we expected, with crude oil and sheen seemingly everywhere we checked.

In one area we found a pod of dolphins poking their noses in the mud looking for morsels of food, only to kick up a nasty rainbow sheen of oil. And when they’d surface to breathe, their blowholes would open, sucking in that same oily sheen. It was the stuff of nightmares. When my respiratory problems became too hard to manage, I went to Florida to recuperate. The dolphins and other creatures of the Gulf were not so lucky.

The situation was reported to the authorities, with whom I exchanged a number of frustrating emails. Finally a few months later, they went to the GPS Position I had provided and reported back that the dolphins’ health appeared to be normal. Frustrating for all sides involved I’m sure, and with the government’s gag order on NOAA staff due to pending lawsuits against BP, it’s been a long time with no news.

My friends know how long I raged about the dolphins in Barataria Bay – and elsewhere in the Gulf where the mortality rates have been no less than astounding. Today that anger is back again, the memories of those dolphins are as vivid as if it were yesterday.

In this video, you’ll see the dolphins around 1:13 forward.

New York Times/Environmental Blog
By LESLIE KAUFMAN

Dolphins in Barataria Bay off Louisiana, which was hit hard by the BP oil spill in 2010, are seriously ill, and their ailments are probably related to toxic substances in the petroleum, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggested on Friday.

As part of an ongoing assessment of damages caused by the three-month spill, which began with an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig, NOAA scientists performed comprehensive physicals last summer on 32 dolphins from the bay. They found problems like drastically low weight, low blood sugar and, in some cases, cancer of the liver and lungs.

Yet the most common symptom among the dolphins, found in about half the group, was an abnormally low level of stress hormones like cortisol. Such hormones regulate many functions in the animal, including the immune system and responses to threats. Scientists said the dearth of hormones suggested that the animals were suffering from adrenal insufficiency.

Lori Schwacke, the lead scientist for the health assessment, said the findings were preliminary and could not be conclusively linked to the oil spill at this point. But she said the exams were also conducted on control groups of dolphins that live along the Atlantic coast and in other areas that were not affected by the 2010 spill and that those dolphins did not manifest those symptoms.

“The findings we have are also consistent with other studies that have looked at the effects of oil exposure in other mammals,” Dr. Schwacke added, citing experimental studies of mink that were dosed with oil. Some of those minks developed adrenal insufficiency.

Strandings of dolphins began rising in states along the Gulf of Mexico in February 2010, or about two months before the oil spill.

But NOAA says that the strandings have returned to normal rates along the Florida coast, which was the farthest from the spill, while remaining abnormally high along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. In Barataria Bay alone, with a population of about 1,000 dolphins, 180 strandings have been reported since February 2010. In a normal year, about 20 dolphin standings would be reported in all of Louisiana, the agency said.

Ben Sherman, a NOAA spokesman, cautioned against drawing too broad a conclusion about dolphin deaths across the gulf from the findings. He said the results could provide “possible clues” to the effects of the oil spill on other dolphins in the northern Gulf of Mexico. “However, it is too soon to tell how the Barataria Bay findings apply,” he said.

March 24, 2012