A study out of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi has found traces of pharmaceuticals — including opioids, muscle relaxants, and sedatives — in the blubber of common bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico.
Traces of pharmaceutical drugs were found in 30 out of 89 blubber samples collected — 83 of which were from live dolphins and six of which were collected post-mortem. Fentanyl, an opioid that is 100 times stronger than morphine, was found in 18 samples and all of the post-mortem biopsies.
The study raises concerns about micropollutants that could also potentially affect humans, since dolphins in the gulf eat much of the same shrimp and fish that we do.
TAMU-CC calls bottlenose dolphins a "bioindicator species of ecosystem health" that points to what seems to be a long-standing issue when it comes to pharmaceutical contamination.
Dr. Dara Orbach, Assistant Professor of Marine Biology at TAMU-CC and Principal Investigator on this project, emphasized the need for larger-scale studies to examine the sources of this kind of widespread contamination — as well as its effects and the dosages involved, which are still not known.
Dr. Christiana Wittmaack, co-author of the study, said that for now, people should be mindful of how they dispose of pharmaceuticals.
"We really need to be cognizant of how we dispose of our pharmaceuticals," Wittmaack said. "We need to make sure that we do it properly, that we don't just throw them away or flush them down the toilet, because even if it gets into our soil ... it can leach into our waterways. So we need to be paying more attention to these programs that take medications and dispose of them properly because they are getting into the environment."
The dolphins tested were from multiple sites along the Texas coast as well as Mississippi.