NOAA Study finds gulf dolphin population could take 40 years to recover from BP oil spill

The BP oil spill may have had more severe impacts on marine mammals than previously believed and a new study says it could take dolphin populations in the Gulf of Mexico more than 40 years to recover.

In April 2010 a blowout on a BP drilling rig resulted in the release of 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over an 87-day period, killing thousands of marine mammals including bottlenose dolphins.

A new study coordinated by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration documents the unprecedented mortality rate and long-term environmental impacts of the oil's exposure.

The study found that the dolphin population in the Barataria Bay in southeast Louisiana are half of what they were before the spill and that full population recovery will take 40 years.

In addition, the scientists found that 25% of the current population are underweight and 17% are in a poor or grave condition.

The study was done in conjunction with scientists from the St Andrews-based Sea Mammal Research Unit and the Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling.

The groups worked together to predict the long-term damage to marine mammal populations from the oil spill by integrating multiple sources of information from the relatively well-studied dolphin populations around the Mississippi delta to assess the current population health and predict how this might change in the future.

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