Sampling dolphins in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) continues to help the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program (SRDP) in the area of bottlenose dolphin health assessment. Since 2002, we have assisted the program by developing sample collection procedures, archiving samples in the NIST Marine Environmental Specimen Bank (Marine ESB), assisting in field collections, and analyzing dolphin samples for pollutants.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was a major factor influencing how we collaborated with the SRDP this year. NIST was asked by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to help in collecting data for use in assessing injury to bottlenose dolphins that resulted from the oil spill.
NIST helped NOAA’s assessment of the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on bottlenose dolphins by participating in dolphin health assessments at two locations, a reference location, Sarasota Bay, in collaboration with the SRDP, and in Barataria Bay, LA, a location that was oiled during the oil spill.
In addition, remote biopsy samples that were collected in St. Joseph Bay, FL, a region where oil was expected to reach but never did, have been stored at NIST for analysis.
We modified our existing sampling protocols for bottlenose dolphins that had focused mainly on the collection of samples for chlorine and bromine pollutants analysis to also include the collection of samples specifically for oil and oil metabolites.
NIST personnel were deployed to both dolphin health assessments to assist in sample collection and processing. Unlike previous years, NIST will have a minimal role in the analysis of samples.
This work will be done by a special NOAA laboratory dedicated to the analysis of oil spill-related samples. Results from sample analysis should shed light on the extent to which Barataria Bay bottlenose dolphins are exposed to oil relative to non-impacted Sarasota Bay and St. Joseph Bay dolphins.
Aside from oil spill-related samples, blood samples were collected from the two health assessments for archival in the Marine ESB in order to continue the time series of samples collected from the Sarasota bottlenose dolphin population. In addition, a pilot project was started to archive serum from dolphins for future use in understanding disease outbreaks or for use in health-marker related research.
