Bluffton resident Jimmy McIntire was fishing from his boat Tuesday afternoon when he noticed something unusual floating near Myrtle Island in the May River. Piloting closer to investigate, he discovered a dead dolphin — with a conspicuous bite taken out of it. “It was definitely from a shark,” he said. “Must have been quite a [...]
In 1996, President Bill Clinton commissioned the National Science and Technology Council to create an award celebrating emerging researchers in the fields of science and technology at the outset of their careers. The result was the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The PECASE award is given annually to a group of researchers [...]
Researchers at the (National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science’s) Hollings Marine Laboratory and four partner organizations have measured for the first time concentrations of 13 perfluoroalkyl compounds (PFCs) in five different endangered species of sea turtles. While PFC toxicology studies have not yet been conducted on turtles, the levels of the compounds seen in all five [...]
The rescue of a baby dolphin really was attempted on Folly Beach recently, it turns out. Accounts of Brien Limehouse’s effort to save the stranded dolphin a few weeks ago circulated online after a photo of a baby dolphin on a man’s arm was posted on the Folly Beach page on Facebook last week and [...]
NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service conservationists are looking into why Hawaiian Monk seal numbers continue to decline despite their best efforts and asked NOS scientists to test for evidence of what might be ailing the animals. Using state-of-the-art analytical methods, the researchers discovered that nearly 20 percent of the samples taken from free-ranging monk seals [...]
Wildlife forensics experts from NOAA, the Society for Wildlife Forensic Sciences, and other organizations convened last week at NOAA’s Marine Forensics Laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina, for the inaugural meeting of the Scientific Working Group for Wildlife Forensics (SWG-WILD). The experts established the SWG (pronounced “swig”) in response to a 2009 report from the National [...]
In 2002, a mysterious disease began killing fish at a commercial aquaculture facility in North Carolina. Lots of fish. Over 21,000 striped bass died during the outbreak. At the time, no one knew what caused this massive fish kill. Why did it happen? Would it happen again? We now know that the culprit behind the [...]
In August 2008, an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin was found dead on the North Carolina coast, its skin cracked and ulcerated with an alarming growth of gray and white nodules. This dolphin was confirmed as having lobomycosis, the first confirmed case in North Carolina waters of this chronic fungal skin infection. Reports of this type of [...]