877 dead dolphins washed ashore in Peru

877 dolphins have washed up onto the shores of Peru since mid-February and at this time environmental authorities are still not certain exactly what caused the deaths of the animals.

Peruvian Deputy Environment Minister Gabriel Quijandria and his team believe the dolphin’s may have died from an outbreak of Morbillivurs or Brucella bacteria but at this time they have not confirmed the reason for the massive number of dead dolphins.

The bodies of the dolphins began washing up in a 137-mile area from Punta Aguja to Lambayeque, located in northern Peru.

Scientists are finding it difficult to study the deaths because 80% of those animals washed up already in an advanced state of decomposition.

A Peruvian panel has been setup with members of different ministries investigate a report put together by the Peruvian Sea Institute.

Other possible causes of death could be starvation, fisheries interaction, pesticide poisoning, heavy metal contamination or biotoxin poisoning.

Over the next few days a histopathological analysis will be released which should provide needed details for scientists to hopefully solve the case.

Peru isn’t the only area suffering large numbers of Dolphin losses, 179 of the mammals washed up on the shores of Cape Cod in February and 108 of those dolphins did not survive. Biologists are still attempting to determine what caused the Cape Cod dolphins to come ashore.

30 more dolphins also washed ashore in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in early March, all 30 of those dolphins were eventually returned to sea without any deaths to report.