Dolphin program plans more tests

Andrew Edwards

Orange Coast College professor Dennis Kelly plans to continue

research on two dolphins that died last year in Newport Harbor --

work that he says shows just how unsafe the harbor is.

Kelly and students in the school’s Coastal Dolphin Survey Project

plan to unearth the older dolphin from its Shellmaker Island resting

place in an attempt to extract flesh for scientific studies.

The entire dolphin will not be exhumed during the digging, which

Kelly said could happen sometime next week.

“We’re just going to dig down to the dolphin, then try remove

flesh, any flesh, even if its dried, from the carcass,” Kelly said.

“Our molecular biology person here at Coast said they can run DNA

actually off of flesh that’s fairly decomposed.”

A DNA test could help Kelly and his students determine if the two

dolphins that were found dead last year in Newport Harbor were

related.

“We’re going to do some DNA testing just to make sure that they’re

mother and calf,” student Nikolai Alvarado said. Alvarado is the

project’s special projects director.

The two dolphins died last year; they had spent some time in

Newport Harbor. The older dolphin was found in September, and the

younger animal was discovered in December. Lab studies completed in

March showed the younger dolphin had levels of mercury and other

poisons in its tissues.

If possible, tissues from the older dolphin would be analyzed for

contaminants, but the likelihood of any flesh being suitable for that

kind of testing would be a longshot, Kelly said.

In addition to lab studies, students in the dolphin project are

working on a skeletal display of the dolphins to be installed at the

Back Bay Science Center and a video documentary on the animals.

“We want to make an exhibit to let people know what happened to

them,” Alvarado said.

The amount of poisons found in the younger dolphin alarmed Kelly.

He and students in the project intend to report the results of their

dolphin studies in a scientific paper to present to the Santa Ana

Regional Water Quality Control Board. The board has authority over

waters that flow into Newport Bay and Newport Harbor.

“I think this may be a watershed issue, not a city of Newport

Beach issue,” Kelly said.

Dolphins are at the high end of the food chain and the dead

animals could have ingested toxics by eating contaminated fish, Kelly

said. He believes a lesson of their research so far is not to eat

fish caught in the harbor.

“There’s a lot of people who fish off their dock, or their kids

fish off their dock,” Kelly said. “They shouldn’t be doing that.”

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers business and the environment. He can be

reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at andrew.edwards

@latimes.com.