Dolphin deaths higher than normal along U.S. East Coast beaches
By Victoria Cavaliere
Thu Aug 1, 2013 5:38pm EDT
(Reuters) - Carcasses of bottlenose dolphins are washing up on U.S. East Coast beaches from New Jersey to Virginia at a higher than normal pace, with more than 120 dead animals discovered since June, local and federal officials said on Thursday.
The cause of the dolphin deaths has yet to be determined, said Maggie Mooney-Seus, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service, which is analyzing information collected by marine stranding response centers along the East Coast.
"It's absolutely alarming," said Susan Barco, research coordinator at the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center Foundation.
Since early June, 87 dead dolphins have been found in Virginia, compared to about 50 dolphin deaths the state by this time last year. Most were found clustered in the middle to lower Chesapeake Bay region.
In New Jersey, 21 dolphin carcasses have been found so far this year, compared to a dozen deaths in a typical year. In Delaware, 10 baby dolphins have perished since June, compared to a typical seasonal death toll of five. In Maryland, where there is usually one death each season, at least 4 dead dolphins have been discovered.
Bottlenose dolphins live in pods that range in size from two to 15 animals along the U.S. eastern seaboard from New Jersey to Florida. The mammals spend most of the year in the temperate southern waters then move to the bays, sounds and open waters of the Mid-Atlantic from May to October, according to Bob Schoelkopf, the director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, New Jersey.
Necropsies are being performed on the animals and it could take several months to determine what has led to the deaths, he said.
But Virginia experts said early findings indicated it appears to be "more of a sickness," Barco said.
"This is really frightening because these animals are sentinels of ocean health. Strandings have been much more common in the past few decades and we think it's an indication of the health of our ecosystem," she said.
As Humans Change Landscape, Brains of Some Animals Change, Too
A new study suggests that the brains of several small mammals, including those of the little brown bat, have grown bigger as humans have altered the animals' living conditions. Evan McGlinn for The New York Times
By CARL ZIMMER Published: August 22, 2013
Evolutionary biologists have come to recognize humans as a tremendous evolutionary force. In hospitals, we drive the evolution of resistant bacteria by giving patients antibiotics. In the oceans, we drive the evolution of small-bodied fish by catching the big ones.
In a new study [ http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1769/20131384 ], a University of Minnesota biologist, Emilie C. Snell-Rood, offers evidence suggesting we may be driving evolution in a more surprising way. As we alter the places where animals live, we may be fueling the evolution of bigger brains.
Dr. Snell-Rood bases her conclusion on a collection of mammal skulls kept at the Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Snell-Rood picked out 10 species to study, including mice, shrews, bats and gophers. She selected dozens of individual skulls that were collected as far back as a century ago. An undergraduate student named Naomi Wick measured the dimensions of the skulls, making it possible to estimate the size of their brains.
Two important results emerged from their research. In two species — the white-footed mouse and the meadow vole — the brains of animals from cities or suburbs were about 6 percent bigger than the brains of animals collected from farms or other rural areas. Dr. Snell-Rood concludes that when these species moved to cities and towns, their brains became significantly bigger.
Dr. Snell-Rood and Ms. Wick also found that in rural parts of Minnesota, two species of shrews and two species of bats experienced an increase in brain size as well.
Dr. Snell-Rood proposes that the brains of all six species have gotten bigger because humans have radically changed Minnesota. Where there were once pristine forests and prairies, there are now cities and farms. In this disrupted environment, animals that were better at learning new things were more likely to survive and have offspring.
Studies by other scientists have linked better learning in animals with bigger brains. In January, for example, researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden described an experiment [ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982212014388 ] in which they bred guppies for larger brain sizes. The big-brained fish scored better on learning tests than their small-brained cousins.
Animals colonizing cities and towns have to learn how to find food in buildings and other places their ancestors hadn’t encountered.
“We’re changing rural populations, too,” Dr. Snell-Rood said. As forests get cut for timber or farming, for example, bats may have to travel farther to find food and still be able to navigate home to roost. Big brains may have benefited them as well.
Other scientists not involved in the research hailed it as the first report of significant changes in brain size in animals outside of labs. “I think the results are exciting and deserving of much follow-up work,” said Jason Munshi-South, an evolutionary biologist at Fordham University.
Dr. Munshi-South and other researchers see a need to test Dr. Snell-Rood’s hypothesis in new ways, so as to rule out alternative explanations.
If she’s right, for example, then the same trend she observed in Minnesota should exist in museum collections of skulls from other heavily developed regions of the world.
It should also be possible to continue the research in labs, by breeding small-brained rural mammals with their big-brained cousins. By studying their offspring, scientists could study the genes involved in producing different brain sizes. They could even give the animals tests to see just how much life in a human-dominated world has changed how their brains work.
But the ultimate breeding experiment to test Dr. Snell-Rood’s hypothesis may not be possible outside the movie set for “Jurassic Park.” “What would be really cool would be to raise populations from 1900,” said Dr. Snell-Rood with a laugh, “but we can’t really do that.”
A report [ http://iwc.int/index.php?cID=454&cType=html ] released yesterday by a panel of scientists, conservation organizations and government agencies have positively linked a mass stranding of whales to sonar used by Exxon/Mobile during an offshore survey. In this case, the whales fled the area prior to the seismic phase of the survey, which shows that even this type of sonar (also used by military and research vessels) is devastating to whale and dolphins.
An independent scientific review panel has concluded that the mass stranding of approximately 100 melon-headed whales in the Loza Lagoon system in northwest Madagascar in 2008 was primarily triggered by acoustic stimuli, more specifically, a multi-beam echosounder system operated by a survey vessel contracted by ExxonMobil Exploration and Production (Northern Madagascar) Limited.
WCS and IFAW support these conclusions that add to a mounting body of evidence of the potential impacts of anthropogenic noise on marine mammals," said Dr. Howard Rosenbaum, Director of the Ocean Giants Program for WCS. "Implications go well beyond the hydrocarbon industry, as these sonar systems are widely used aboard military and research vessels for generating more precise bathymetry (underwater mapping). We now hope that these results will be used by industry, regulatory authorities, and others to minimize risks and to better protect marine life, especially marine mammal species that are particularly sensitive to increasing ocean noise from human activities.
Melon-headed whales swimming in tight circles in Hanalei Bay, Hawaii, on July 3, 2004. (Image courtesy of National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration)
While not conclusively proven, NOAA acknowledged a correlation with sonar in a similar mass stranding [ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060428094046.htm ] of melon-headed whales occurred in Hanalei Bay, Kauai, Hawaii in 2004. At the time of the stranding, the Navy was conducting exercises involving loud sonar in the area. "Sound propagation models suggest that sonar transmissions were likely detectable over a large area around Kaua'i for many hours on the day prior to the stranding, as well as within Hanalei Bay when the animals were there," said Brandon Southall, NOAA Fisheries Service's Acoustics Program Director. "Active sonar transmissions on the 2nd and 3rd of July are a plausible, if not likely, contributing factor to the animals entering and remaining in the bay."
This video [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4jC2tizy7w (below, as embedded)] shows the impact on whales and dolphins -- it is heartbreaking to see the pilot whale calf trying to communicate with its mother, and a bit alarming to learn how global this situation turns out to be.
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