CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A new study from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi shows that dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico are exhibiting traces of fentanyl in their blubber. Researchers analyzed 89 dolphin blubber samples.
Some of those samples were collected near Redfish Bay and the Laguna Madre.
"We found the presence of fentanyl in a dolphin that we had collected that was stranded in Baffin Bay Texas," said Texas A&M University PHD student Makayla Guinn, who was a graduate assistant on the case study titled “Pharmaceuticals in the Blubber of Live Free-Swimming Common Bottlenose Dolphins."
Guinn said that she along with her colleagues were alarmed by their findings. She said that since the discovery is still new, there's still much to do before they can properly make sense of them.
"We were not able to confidently quantify the pharmaceuticals that we found. They were below what we call our limit of quantification. However they were high enough for us to detect them," Guinn said.
Dolphins play a vital role in whatever environment they find themselves in. Due to that fact, Guinn said that finding traces of fentanyl inside the dolphins blubber, regardless of quantity, was enough to raise concerns.
"For there to be drugs in a dolphin means that the drugs are either in the water, or they're in the prey that they're consuming," Guinn said.
Surfrider Foundation Bluewater Taskforce Coordinator Tommy Shilts has conducted numerous water tests in our area. He said that there are a few ways the dolphins could've gotten the fentanyl in their system.
"Sometimes vessels sink. Sometimes evidence is thrown overboard," Shilts said.
While Shilts has tested various bodies of water ranging from Mustang Island, Padre Balli Park, and both JP Luby, he said the findings are ",shocking but it's not surprising because anything we get going into the waterways is going to get into people and sea life."
Guinn said that now that she and her colleagues are aware of of the fentanyl levels, adjustments can be made in their research to better understand how such a harmful drug could find itself in one of the gulf's most beloved creatures.
"We're going to look deeper at very specific compounds that we would expect to find based on their chemical properties and their ability to accumulate in the blubber tissue of dolphins," Guinn said.
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