Delaware’s Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation (MERR) Institute will be conducting its annual Dolphin Count Saturday. The tally will track the number of bottlenose dolphins along the First State’s coast.
MERR’s staff and volunteers will be situated from Fenwick Island to Woodland Beach in Smyrna.
Suzanne Thurman, Executive Director of MERR, says the annual count is critical to assessing the health of the local dolphin population.
“Basically if we start to notice a decline in the numbers that we’re seeing the day of the count, that might trigger us to do a more in-depth sample and possibly to work with NOAA to do an aerial survey or something of that sort,” said Thurman.
The tally has been taking place for more than 14 years, but Thurman says the 2014 count is critical due to last year’s unusual dolphin mortality event.
“Over 1400 dolphins succumbed to a virus that was affecting that species and that virus is knows as morbillivirus. We here in Delaware experienced nearly 100 dolphin deaths as part of this event,” said Thurman.
The virus, similar to measles in humans, affected the east coast bottlenose dolphin population from New Jersey to Florida.