Dolphin Mortality in Peru - 2nd Trip

Hardy and Carlos by Dead Baby Dolphin

Tuesday, April 10. We arrive to the stranding site, as I told you before,
on Tuesday, next with my assistant, a Environmental Police officer and
driver. We closed a successfull day collecting 10 periotic bones from
dolphins, blubber samples from new dolphin strandings that were
viable and a fresh baby porpoise for histology analysis collected at
the very end of they. We surveyed 50 Km only, planning to return the
next day. It took us 8 hours in the road since removing periotic bones
is a very delicate process, as Hardy knows from experience. We counted
a dozen new dead dolphins dead a week ago getting stranded by the
ocean.

Conclusion as to Cause of Dolphin Mortality East Coast USA

During the late 1980s a massive die-off of bottlenose dolphins took place first in New Jersey and moved along the entire eastern seaboard, ending finally at Cape Canaveral. Hundreds of dead dolphins were found, many others were never counted. Below is the conclusion of the multidisciplinary committee that investigated this dreadful event.

My book contains the entire story, politics, bureaucracy and unanswered questions.

 

The process of reviewing evidence and getting it peer-reviewed takes time. In September 1994, I received a report of the conclusions of the interagency team that had gathered in Beaufort, North Carolina, with additional experts to bring together all information produced by investigations into the die-off. The report concluded, “The results for the beach-cast specimens (dead dolphins) obviously reflect the levels of contaminants in the nearshore environment where the dolphins accumulate these substances.” 

But no definitive answer was ever found.