What will happen to dolphins in the Gulf or bays?
The short answer is that we just don’t know what will happen to marine mammals like dolphins. Until this disaster, there has never been a systematic study of how dolphins respond to oil spills, especially over the long term. It is extremely unfortunate, but under the circumstances Mote and others have a responsibility to create a better scientific understanding of the effects of the spill on dolphin populations to better inform resource managers’ future decisions about their populations.
