BP oil spill partly blamed for Gulf dolphin deaths

Photo source: ©© LaPrimaDonna
Excerpt, from the Agence France Presse
The deaths of over 150 dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico so far this year is due in part to the devastating 2010 BP oil spill and the chemical dispersants used to contain it, a report said Thursday.
A total of 153 dolphins have been found in the Gulf so far in 2011, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Sixty-five of the mammals were babies.
In a study on the effects of the spill, marine expert Graham Worthy of the University of Central Florida, along with 26 other experts, said the dolphins were found in a part of the Gulf that saw nearly five million barrels of crude leak in the worst oil spill in US history…
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Hundreds of miles of fragile coastal wetlands and beaches were contaminated, a third of the Gulf’s rich US waters were closed to fishing, and the economic costs have reached into the tens of billions of dollars since the leak began in April last year after an explosion aboard a deep-sea drilling rig.
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