THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 20, 1995 TAG: 9502200086
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
The report could be could good news ...
An increase in dolphin strandings could reflect a population rebound after a destructive die-off in 1987.
Or it could be bad news...
Many stranded harbor porpoises had net marks on them, indicating they had run afoul of fishing boats.
Scientists are reporting a dramatic increase in the number of dolphins, whales and seals that died or were stranded along the Virginia coast last year.
In 1994, Virginia recorded 47 beachings of harbor porpoises - the most of any oceanfront state, according to statistics released last week by the Virginia Marine Science Museum in Virginia Beach.
And the 42 bottlenose dolphins that washed ashore here were the highest since a massive wave of dolphin deaths struck the Atlantic coast in 1987.
``This, unfortunately, has been our busiest year by far,'' said Mark Swingle, state strandings coordinator and a biologist at the museum.
Volunteers have been responding to stranded marine mammals from Chincoteague to the North Carolina border for eight years. They rescue a handful of trapped animals each year but lose the vast majority to stress and injury. In most cases, they merely cart away a carcass.
Explaining why overall strandings have nearly doubled in Virginia - from 59 in 1993 to 110 last year - is difficult, researchers say. Everything from better reporting to more volunteers can influence what sounds like a troubling trend.
In one context, Swingle suggested, the increase can actually be viewed as positive. The increasing number of dolphin strandings, for example, seems to underscore a population rebound after the destructive 1987 die-off.
``This seems to say we're getting a higher reproductive rate off the coast, that we're finally seeing some recovery,'' he said.
Swingle said many stranded harbor porpoises - a smaller, darker-colored cousin of the playful dolphin - were found with net marks on them, indicating a deadly interaction with fishing boats.
Jack Musick, head of vertebrate ecology at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, a branch of the College of William and Mary, said fishing gear is likely the best explanation for the two-fold rise in porpoise deaths.
Musick pointed specifically to an expanding winter shad fishery, in which watermen deploy gill nets along the Virginia coast from January to early March.
``They're the smoking gun,'' he said. ``Porpoises migrate on the same schedule as shad . . . and are in the same place at the same time this all is going on.''
Musick, Swingle and other marine-mammal researchers did not see any indication of disease causing the strandings. Toxic algae blooms, believed to be a contributor to the '87 dolphin disaster, also were ruled out.
Unlike in Virginia, strandings reported in North Carolina decreased slightly last year, said Victoria Thayer, a federal biologist and state strandings coordinator in Beaufort, N.C.
In 1994, North Carolina volunteers found 117 stranded whales, dolphins and seals, down from 122 in 1993.
``We still have more than Virginia, but our numbers are pretty much staying flat,'' Thayer said.
This seems to add credence to the theory that shad fishing is contributing to the commonwealth's increase. As Musick explained, shad watermen usually start their winter fishing at the North Carolina line and sweep north toward the Eastern Shore.
Both Virginia and North Carolina have seen more seals migrating south from their traditional havens in New England.
Swingle noted that seven harbor seals and one hooded seal, usually found on the rocky coasts of Maine, were among those stranded last year in Virginia.
Thayer said seal strandings were slightly up in North Carolina - including one seal found on a Wilmington beach with 14 pellets from a gunshot in its head. It later was euthanized.
In Virginia Beach, Swingle said his office has received numerous reports from people worried about a seal lying on a pier or on the rocks supporting the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
``As their population has grown in New England, they've gradually migrated here,'' he said. ``It's quite natural. . . . People shouldn't assume seals are sick just because they're lying there on the beach.''
After a calm 1993, whale strandings also increased in Virginia. Most notable was an incident at the North Carolina line in which seven pilot whales were tricked by the tides and became stranded, Swingle recalled.
Volunteers pushed the whales over a sand bar, he said, but all except one came back and stranded on the beach again. ILLUSTRATION: Color graphic and chart by Ken Wright, Staff
Marine mammals stranded in Virginia
For full information see microfilm
FILE PHOTO
Dave Walker of the Virginia Marine Science Museum checks a 40-foot
beached fin whale at Fort Story last March. The number of beached
mammals in Virginia almost doubled in 1994, to 110.
by CNB