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New Study Finds Link Between Climate Change, Skin Disease Killing Dolphins

A dead dolphin is taken to the marine fish farm of Mahebourg, Mauritius, on August 28, 2020. Reuters file photo
A dead dolphin is taken to the marine fish farm of Mahebourg, Mauritius, on August 28, 2020. Reuters file photo
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New Study Finds Link Between Climate Change, Skin Disease Killing Dolphins

A dead dolphin is taken to the marine fish farm of Mahebourg, Mauritius, on August 28, 2020. Reuters file photo
A dead dolphin is taken to the marine fish farm of Mahebourg, Mauritius, on August 28, 2020. Reuters file photo

Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a number of dolphins were found dead from a fatal skin disease near New Orleans, Louisiana's biggest city. The same incident has been observed in numerous parts of the world, but the exact cause of this mysterious disease has never been known.

Today, 15 years later, a new study carried out by researchers at the Marine Mammal Centre in Sausalito, California, and the Murdoch University in Australia, suggested it might be caused by the environmental changes in the dolphins' marine habitat that are linked to climate change. The study was published in the latest issue of the Scientific Reports journal.

In an analysis that identified a link between climate conditions and the death of dolphins from the skin disease, researchers found one common factor among all the death cases that occurred in the US and in other regions of the world like Australia: they happened after the wake of severe storms such as hurricanes and cyclones, in which a massive volume of freshwater rain falls onto land, with subsequent run-off finding its way into rivers and coastal waters.

According to the study, the danger of such sudden deluge events is that they rapidly diminish the salinity of the saltwater that coastal dolphins live in, producing hypo-saline conditions that can persist for weeks or months, as environmental monitoring data from the Australian sites show. Dolphins can tolerate hypo-saline conditions, but only for a short while, with prolonged exposure to freshwater resulting in a range of changes to the animals' skin and blood chemistry, producing dermatitis, lesions, and other physiological stresses, accompanied by opportunistic colonization by algae, fungi, and bacteria.

"The breaks in the skin cause the dolphin to lose vital ions and proteins from their bodies. So when all of that is oozing out of them, the fresh water then rushes in, which causes swellings and ulcers," said lead author Nahiid Stephens from Murdoch University in Australia in a report published Wednesday on the Science Alert website.

The lesions are equivalent to third-degree burns in humans, a horrific injury that can very rapidly result in death. It kills them because it causes electrolyte disruptions in their blood stream and they ultimately end up with organ failure, he added.

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Soviet-era Spacecraft Plunges to Earth after 53 Years Stuck in Orbit

FILE - This photo provided by researcher Jane Greaves shows the planet Venus, seen from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Akatsuki probe in May 2016. (J. Greaves/Cardiff University/JAXA via AP)
FILE - This photo provided by researcher Jane Greaves shows the planet Venus, seen from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Akatsuki probe in May 2016. (J. Greaves/Cardiff University/JAXA via AP)
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Soviet-era Spacecraft Plunges to Earth after 53 Years Stuck in Orbit

FILE - This photo provided by researcher Jane Greaves shows the planet Venus, seen from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Akatsuki probe in May 2016. (J. Greaves/Cardiff University/JAXA via AP)
FILE - This photo provided by researcher Jane Greaves shows the planet Venus, seen from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Akatsuki probe in May 2016. (J. Greaves/Cardiff University/JAXA via AP)

A Soviet-era spacecraft plunged to Earth on Saturday, more than a half-century after its failed launch to Venus.
The European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking confirmed its uncontrolled reentry, based on analysis and no-shows of the spacecraft on subsequent orbits. The European Space Agency’s space debris office also indicated that the spacecraft had reentered after it failed to appear over a German radar station.
It was not immediately known where the spacecraft came in or how much, if any, of the half-ton spacecraft survived the fiery descent from orbit. Experts said ahead of time that some if not all of it might come crashing down, given it was built to withstand a landing on Venus, the solar system’s hottest planet.
The chances of anyone getting clobbered by spacecraft debris were exceedingly low, scientists said.
Launched in 1972 by the Soviet Union, the spacecraft known as Kosmos 482 was part of a series of missions bound for Venus. But this one never made it out of orbit around Earth, stranded there by a rocket malfunction.
Much of the spacecraft came tumbling back to Earth within a decade of the failed launch. No longer able to resist gravity’s tug as its orbit dwindled, the spherical lander — an estimated 3 feet (1 meter) across — was the last part of the spacecraft to come down. The lander was encased in titanium, according to experts, and weighed more than 1,000 pounds (495 kilograms).
After following the spacecraft’s downward spiral, scientists, military experts and others could not pinpoint in advance precisely when or where the spacecraft might come down. Solar activity added to the uncertainty as well as the spacecraft’s deteriorating condition after so long in space.
As of Saturday morning, the US Space Command had yet to confirm the spacecraft's demise as it collected and analyzed data from orbit.
The US Space Command routinely monitors dozens of reentries each month. What set Kosmos 482 apart — and earned it extra attention from government and private space trackers — was that it was more likely to survive reentry, according to officials.
It was also coming in uncontrolled, without any intervention by flight controllers who normally target the Pacific and other vast expanses of water for old satellites and other space debris.