Hundreds of Bottlenose Dolphins Killed by Virus on East Coast

Hundreds of bottlenose dolphins have been dying all along the East Coast. Now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration may have an explanation for the mass of deaths. It turns out that a virus has been running rampant through dolphin populations and may continue until 2014.

The official count this last Monday was a total of 357 bottlenose dolphin deaths, according to USA Today. Spreading from New York to North Carolina, the bodies of these dolphins have been washing ashore for weeks. Yet it's very likely that even more dolphins have died off that have not been accounted for.

So what virus is responsible? Researchers believe that it's the cetacean morbillivirus, which has been confirmed or suspected in 32 of 33 dolphins tested, according to the Washington Post. This measles-like virus, while natural, is killing off an unusual number of dolphins. In fact, from 2007 to 2012 the average number of yearly strandings in the same states was a mere 36 individuals.

Yet this die-off isn't completely unprecedented. The same virus is thought to have been behind a die-off in the 1980s in which nearly 800 dolphins were founded stranded from New Jersey to Florida, according to the Wall Street Journal. During that time, 50 percent of the coastal migratory bottlenose dolphins were affected. Now, officials are worried that this virus could spread and continue into the future.

"At this point, there isn't anything we can do to stop the virus," said Teri Rowles of the federal Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program in an interview with USA Today. "We don't have a vaccine that is developed that could be easily deployed in a wild population of bottlenose dolphins or subpopulation of bottlenose dolphins at this point."

It's likely that other conditions are exacerbating the virus's spread among the dolphins. Chemicals and other disease-causing microbes could be weakening the dolphins' immune systems and making them more susceptible to becoming sick. Unfortunately, there's little that officials can do other than let the virus run its course.