Morbillivirus Outbreak Could Kill 50% of Key’s Dolphins
Image Credit: Heather Baertlein – NOAA
50 percent.
Half.
We’re actually talking about a disease killing massive amounts of bottlenose dolphins in the Florida Keys. This is a problem that is not simply disappearing any time soon.
“It’s not unrealistic, but predicting what it’s going to do is difficult,” said Dr. Gregory Bossart, a veterinary pathologist with the Georgia Aquarium and one of the nation’s leading experts on morbillivirus, a measles-like disease that is highly contagious and deadly among marine mammals.
The Keys got brought into range of the epidemic when a bottlenose dolphin washed up critically ill on the beach at Bahia Honda State Park on Nov. 7. It died later that day and test results showed morbillivirus was present.
This deadly virus has already claimed the lives of more than 1,560 marine mammals, and those are just the ones that are documented since July 2013.
But how is this virus traveling from the Indian River Lagoon in Brevard County all the way to the Keys?
It’s a social virus. Morbillivirus spreads through the droplets of water in the spray when marine mammals exhale at the surface, which means the virus is then transferred when the water rains down on other members of the pod.
Scientists are equally concerned about uninfected dolphin communities immunity and tolerance levels.
The prognosis is not good, folks. We’ll be posting updates on the state of the Keys dolphin population and news of the morbillivirus as we receive updates.
