Virus Theatens Mediterranean Dolphins.

[kimm]

MADRID (Reuters) - Dozens of dead dolphins washing up along the Mediterranean coast have alerted environmentalists to a virus they fear will become an epidemic, El Mundo newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The region's striped dolphins, a protected species, are being infected with a virus which has not been identified and has so far killed several dozen animals along the coast and may spread, the report said, quoting environmental experts.
"We are at the start of an epidemic," Javier Pantoja, a marine conservation official at the Environment Ministry, was quoted as saying.
An Environment Ministry spokesman confirmed that a meeting on the issue would be held in September to try to coordinate action between Spain's autonomous regions, but could not give details of the virus and its effects.
The virus is the latest in a series of difficulties facing the Mediterranean environment. This summer, beaches have been hit by a plague of jellyfish believed by climate experts to be due to warmer sea temperatures as well as over-fishing of predators such as tuna.

Virus threatens Mediterranean dolphins: Spanish paper | Science | Reuters

[NatVox]

In the last two months there have arrived 29 dead dolphins of the Stenella coeruleoalba (delfín listado) sub-species to the coasts of the Valencian Autonomous Region. This is only those which dead bodies have been taken to the coast by the sea. It is unknown how many others may have died.

The possible epidemics is a morbillivirus (see in the Biology forum: Morbilluvirus) which is known as the measles of cetaceans (literally translated from Spanish), similar to the one which killed many pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus) last winter in the Mediterranean. 25 pilot whales were found dead on the Spanish coasts in the Mediterranean.

In the early 90s there was an epidemic that reduced dramatically the populations of dolphins in the Mediterranean, from east to west. The analyses made during that epidemic showed that the dead samples presented very low immunity levels, probably due to sea waters pollution.


Calderón tropical - pilot whale

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Delfines listados - striped dolphins

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