© Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Researchers investigated the deaths of perinatal dolphins, like this one, found in regions affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Scientists have finalized a four-year study of newborn and fetal dolphins found stranded on beaches in the northern Gulf of Mexico between 2010 and 2013. Their study, reported in the journal
Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, identified substantial differences between fetal and newborn dolphins found stranded inside and outside the areas affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The study team evaluated 69 perinatal common bottlenose
dolphins in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, the areas most affected by the spill, and 26 others found in areas unaffected by the spill. The work was conducted as part of an effort to investigate an "unusual mortality event" in the Gulf primarily involving bottlenose dolphins, beginning in early 2010 and continuing into 2014.
Scientists saw higher numbers of stranded perinatal dolphins in the spill zone in 2011 than in other years, particularly in Mississippi and Alabama, the researchers report. The young dolphins, which died in the womb or shortly after birth, "were significantly smaller than those that stranded during previous years and in other geographic locations," they wrote.
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