Studying the Dolphins Off New Jersey

common dolphin Delphinus delphis - NOAA via Wikimedia

Dolphins are dying or being stranded in high numbers this summer along the mid-Atlantic coast, and New Jersey is seeing particularly high rates. Mendy Garron, the Northeast regional stranding coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, explains what could be killing the dolphins and what it means for humans.

Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) has been declared for bottlenose dolphins in the Mid-Atlantic region from early July 2013 through the present. Elevated strandings of bottlenose dolphins have occurred in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

Bottlenose dolphin stranding in NJ. Photo: Marine Mammal Stranding Center via NOAA

Current bottlenose dolphin strandings are over seven times the historical average for the month of July for the Mid-Atlantic Region. All age classes of bottlenose dolphins are involved and strandings range from a few live animals to mostly dead animals with many very decomposed.

According to NOAA, there are "no unifying gross necropsy findings although several dolphins have presented with pulmonary lesions. Preliminary testing of tissues from one dolphin indicates possible morbillivirus infection, although it is too early to say whether or not morbillivirus may be causing this event. Based on the rapid increase in strandings over the last two weeks and the geographic extent of these mortalities, an infectious pathogen is at the top of the list of potential causes for this UME, but all potential causes of these mortalities will be evaluated. Work is underway to determine whether an infectious agent affecting these dolphins is present in collected tissue samples."

Dolphins in New Jersey are not endangered pr threatened. The bottlenose dolphin, tursiops truncatus, are a marine mammal that has the conservation status of "Special Concern."

New Jersey’s coastal waters are home to the coastal form of bottlenose dolphin who prefer marine waters relatively close to shore and over the continental shelf. They will also occasionally enter bays and estuaries in search of prey. Besides the Atlantic Ocean, they have been observed in Delaware and Raritan Bays as well as semi-enclosed water bodies such as Barnegat and Great Bays and the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers.

They typically are found in New Jersey waters between spring and fall, but may rarely be observed during winter as well. They are migratory and spend their winters as far south as North Carolina. New Jersey and New York waters represent the northern extent of the range for the coastal form along the US Atlantic coast.

Here's a segment from The Brian Lehrer Show (WNYC) on this issue.



More on NJ dolphins

Update: Summer Dolphin Deaths

Photo: media.nj.com/star-ledger/

As we reported earlier, there have been an unusually high number of dolphin deaths off our coast this summer. Three dolphins were found deceased Friday in Seaside Heights, Longport, and Stone Harbor and more were reported Saturday at the Jersey Shore. These were severely decomposed dolphins that washed ashore in Long Beach Township and Upper Township.

The total for NJ is 52 since July 9 and about 150 dolphins have been recovered at beaches between New York and Virginia since July.

Robert Schoelkopf, Director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, told the press that in Ocean City last week a shark took a bite out of a dying dolphin struggling in knee-deep water. "We were lucky because just before the dolphin appeared, we had a severe lighting storm and lifeguards blew their whistles to get people out of the water. Someone in the crowd wading in the water could have been bitten."

Responders from the Center do not enter the water to recover sea life, but wait for the animal to wash ashore.

"Strandings" are when live animals are captured, weighed, tagged, possibly treated and then released, so these dolphin cases are not part of that category.

Although some of the dolphins have tested positive for morbillivirus, a naturally occurring virus in dolphin populations, the cause of this summer's number of deaths is still not confirmed. Because dolphins swim close together in pods, diseases spread between animals when they surface to breathe.

There is no evidence so far that the deaths this summer are in any way related to water quality or represent a danger to humans.

More dead dolphins wash ashore, cause still unclear
Jersey Shore Dolphin Deaths Not Related to Water Quality
Another dolphin death in Ocean City

Dolphins in the Hackensack River

If the harp seal visiting Woodbridge this month wasn't enough for New Jersey, now a pod of about a dozen dolphins have appeared in the Hackensack River way up near Teaneck, Bogota and Hackensack.

They are far from the ocean - about 12 miles - which is not good. As we said with that seal, there will not be enough food in the river during this season to sustain them. Also the salinity (salt) level in the water is far too low for these marine mammals.

View some video of the dolphins http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrDQSDByZSc from the Associated Press.

Once again, the Marine Mammal Stranding Center from Brigantine has been contacted, but unfortunately the dolphins are not stranded or in distress, so they can't act in their behalf.

Harp Seal in Woodbridge, NJ

You don't really expect to find a seal wandering along an avenue in New Jersey.

But, a Woodbridge township snow plow driver came across one this month on Sixth Avenue in the Port Reading section of the township early one snowy morning.

It tuned out to be an adult harp seal. The police and a township control officer were notified and, according to reports, they dragged the seal to the Woodbridge River.

Seals are Arctic mammals that live on ice flows, but in cold weather, many are carried by currents and swim south looking for food. It's not that rare that seals will make the 1,500 mile journey to the New Jersey coast. Seals often come onto beaches to escape the cold water where they will lay in the sun and build up their oxygen levels.

New Jersey sees more seals in the winter now than in earlier decades. Two colonies live off the Jersey shore in the winter, with one visible from Sandy Hook.

Beach visitors of the human variety should avoid going near the seals and not try to feed them.

Harp seals are part of the family Phocidae, known as the "true" or "earless" seals because they lack external ear flaps. They have a robust body, a relatively small, broad, flat head, and a narrow snout that contains eight pairs of teeth in both the upper and lower jaws.

During breeding in February and March, and when molting in late spring, harp seals aggregate in large numbers of up to several thousand seals on the pack ice. During extensive seasonal migrations, large groups may feed and travel together.

Harp seals are highly migratory. Following the breeding season, adults assemble north of their "whelping" sites to undergo an annual molt before continuing to migrate north to Arctic summer feeding grounds. In late September, after feeding all summer, most adults and some immature seals of the Western North Atlantic stock migrate south along the Labrador coast to the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, generally arriving by early winter. There they split into two groups, one moving into the Gulf and the other remaining off the coast of Newfoundland.

In recent years, the number of sightings and strandings from January to May have increased off the east coast of the United States from Maine to New Jersey. During this time, the Western North Atlantic stock of harp seals is at the most southern point of their migration.

Robert Schoelkopf, founding director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, says that the Center has been called this season to rescue seals already. He said that the township officials had tried to put a net around the seal but failed and were finally able to grab the seal with a mouthpiece normally used to capture dogs.

Probably, dragging the seal into the Woodbridge River was not the best course of action. Acting more out of fear for the animal's safety, the treatment might have caused injuries, and also may have put it in an unfamiliar waterway where it would not know how to navigate to open water.

The best sceanrio would be that the seal would swim out to Arthur Kill. If the seal went upstream, it would be in less water, probably without food, and would be more likely to wander on land again.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act bans anybody without proper training from handling seals. The proper course of action would be to to call the Marine Mammal Stranding Center (609) 266-0538.

Adopt A Seal through the  MarineMammalStrandingCenter.org

The Marine Mammal Stranding Center is a private, non-profit organization, started in 1978 with a handful of volunteers and a C.E.T.A. grant. It was founded and is still directed by Robert Schoelkopf. He and his wife, Sheila Dean, along with a small paid staff and volunteers with a wide variety of talents and professional backgrounds, continue to work with the animals. The Center is now located on the barrier island of Brigantine, which borders coastal New Jersey’s largest wildlife refuge.

With a permit and authorization from the state and federal governments, the Center has responded to over 3450 strandings of whales, dolphins, seals and sea turtles that have washed ashore over the years. Even though these governments sanction the handling of strandings in New Jersey only, the Center is occasionally called upon to assist with animals in other states. All funding comes through donations, grants, memberships, and fund-raising efforts. Since there is no permanent funding at this time, your donations and membership dollars are vital.

 

Harp Seals (Early Bird Nature Books) 

 

Jersey Manatee Visitor Snowbirds Back to Florida

Like many of NJ's human "snowbirds," a Jersey visitor has headed back to Florida for the holidays.

Ilya, a manatee who journeyed up and down the East Coast, is back in the warm waters off Florida. Ilya also made stops in Cape Cod and Maryland.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rescued Ilya in October from a warm-water outflow pipe at the ConocoPhillips Bayway Refinery in Linden.

Manatees are warm-water animals, so Ilya needed to get back to Florida before winter conditions set in.

Scars on the manatee's back identified him as e regular visitor to Northern waters. It is possible that Ilya came north in July in search of a mate. (A popular activity at the Jersey shore during the summer.)

On October 15th, a surprised oil refinery worker found him near a warm-water discharge pipe where he was trying to stay warm. The water temperature was 53 degrees while manatees need a water temperature of at least 68 degrees.

He was transported to a heated indoor pool at the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, N.J. After he was cleared for transport, he was flown back to the Florida at the end of October aboard a Coast Guard C-130 cargo aircraft.

Ilya spent 6 weeks recovering from his cold exposure in a warm tank at the Seaquarium on Florida's Biscayne Bay.

Ilya is now off on his own again and hopefully will be more careful - 91 manatees have already been killed in 2009 by watercraft near Florida. Ilya has a white scar on his head and notches on his tail from boat hits.

Facilities such as the NJ Marine Mammal Stranding Center (MMSC) and the Miami Seaquarium are vital to the recovery of the endangered manatee population and other marine creatures. This may seem like extraordinary measures for one manatee, but each individual is important to the long-term survival of the species.

West Indian manatees in the United States are protected under federal law by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, and the Endangered Species Act of 1973, which make it illegal to harass, hunt, capture, or kill any marine mammal. West Indian manatees are also protected by the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act of 1978. Violations of these federal or state laws can be met with civil or criminal convictions associated with monetary fines and/or imprisonment.

The MMSC has events to raise funds and awareness about the animals and their problems. Sponsorships help them continue the work of rescuing and rehabilitating Marine Mammals and Sea Turtles. There are also opportunities to volunteer at the Center.

Wayward manatee rescued in N.J. is flown to safety

To learn more about manatees
Save the Manatee Club (FL)
Miami Seaquarium
Marine Mammal Stranding Center (NJ)