"Failed Barataria Dolphin Pregnancies Linked To BP Spill"

"Only two of 10 Barataria Bay bottlenose dolphins that were found to be pregnant in 2011, a year after the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion oiled the bay, had successful pregnancies. And the survival rate through July 2015 for adult dolphins that were given health assessments in the bay in 2011 is 10 percent lower than found in two studies of dolphins in un-oiled Sarasota Bay, Fla.

Those are key findings from a study released Tuesday (Nov. 3) by a team of scientists including marine mammal experts with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service and a variety of marine centers and veterinary hospitals around the United States. The report was published in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the Royal Society in Great Britain.

The results confirm that the Barataria Bay dolphins are decades away from recovery, said Lori Schwacke, lead author on the paper and a wildlife epidemiologist and research statistician with NOAA's Hollings Research Laboratory in Charleston, S.C.. She has been that agency's lead investigator for dolphins since the BP disaster."

Mark Schleifstein reports for the New Orleans Times-Picayune November 3, 2015.