TCPALM.COM
Treasure Coast – A virus that’s killed nearly 1,500 dolphins along the East Coast since July 2013 has spread into the northern Indian River Lagoon.
And the dolphin die-off could move south into Treasure Coast waters.
“There’s certainly the potential for infected animals in the northern lagoon to cross paths with their neighbors to the south and spread the disease,” said Megan Stolen, a research scientist and dolphin expert at the Hubb-SeaWorld Research Institute in Melbourne Beach. “We don’t know when or even if that’s going to happen, but it’s a possibility.”
Since July 1, 2013, a total of 1,487 dolphins have died or were stranded along the Atlantic Coast from New York to Virginia. According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the tentative cause is the measles-like morbillivirus.
Stolen said the first confirmed case of the virus in the lagoon was reported in December in Volusia County.
So far this year, 67 dolphins in the lagoon and ocean waters along Brevard County have died, 18 in August alone. Typically, about 70 dolphins die in the county each year. Several cases are pending final results, but Stolen said one dolphin from the lagoon in Brevard County and three from the ocean there have been confirmed as morbillivirus deaths.
Adam Schaefer, an epidemiologist at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, said neither of the dolphin bodies found along the Treasure Coast in mid-August — one in the St. Lucie River near Stuart, the other in the lagoon near Vero Beach — tested positive for morbillivirus. The cause of the deaths remains under investigation.
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