Guests aboard a cruise boat watch as dolphins frolic in the
boat's wake in the Gulf of Mexico. / Bruce Graner, Pensacola
(Fla.) News Journal PENSACOLA, Fla. - An unusually high number
of dolphin deaths that began three years ago in the northern
Gulf of Mexico is continuing though the number of deaths in
Florida peaked in 2011. From February 2010 to Sunday, the bodies
of 830 marine mammals, nearly all bottlenose dolphins and a few
whales, have been found along the coast from Louisiana to
Apalachicola, Fla., according to figures from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Of those, almost 150
dolphins found dead on beaches or in marshes were premature,
stillborn or neonatal bottlenose. In the seven years before
2010, the northern Gulf each year saw an average 63 bottlenose
dolphin strandings, incidents where injured or sick marine
mammals come ashore. That the number of dolphin deaths continues
to be higher than before 2010 worries Teri Rowles, who heads
NOAA's investigation team. "This is the lon