![]() ![]() On mornings with light wind, the scientists set out in an 18-foot (5.5-meter) skiff to look for dolphins near where the Potomac River empties into the bay.Ī trained eye can notice slight splashing on the water a mile (1.6 kilometers) away, or catch the glint of sunlight on a fin or tail. “I joke with my students that if they wore dorsal fin hats, I would remember all their names." In the Chesapeake Bay area, tracking how dolphins mingle has required the scientists to distinguish more than 2,000 dolphins, mostly by distinctive shapes and markings of their dorsal fins. and Australia is that while dolphins have close buddies, they come and go regularly to check on others. What she’s observed over 35 years of studying dolphins in the U.S. “We call it holding hands,” said Mann, who also directs the nonprofit Potomac-Chesapeake Dolphin Project.Īlthough many people casually refer to a “pod” of dolphins, Mann dislikes the term, because it implies a stable group, like a pack of wolves. “Your friends that you need are also the individuals most likely to get you sick.”ĭolphins are extremely playful animals and often swim close together, sometimes even touching fins. “Contact networks represent a double-edged sword,” he said. To understand how diseases circulate in social animals - such as humans, dolphins or chimpanzees - scientists must scrutinize not only the biology of a virus, but also how vulnerable populations interact, said Jacob Negrey, a researcher who studies animal viruses at Wake Forest School of Medicine. She realized that the key to understanding swift virus transmission was tracing dolphin social networks, much as public health authorities have tracked the COVID-19 pandemic. “When dolphins breathe together at the surface, they’re sharing respiratory droplets just like we do when we’re talking or coughing on each other.” “It’s much like COVID - it's respiratory" in how it spreads, said Mann. Altogether, an estimated 20,000 dolphins died from the virus, and the region's population of coastal dolphins shrank by about 50%. Mann and other scientists are trying to understand how a highly contagious and lethal disease called cetacean morbillivirus - related to measles in humans and first detected in Virginia and Maryland waters - can spread rapidly among dolphins along the Atlantic Coast, as it did from 2013 to 2015.ĭuring that outbreak, more than 1,600 dolphins washed ashore on beaches from New York to Florida, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. While such close contact is essential to dolphin social bonds, sharing space and air can also quickly spread disease. ![]()
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