Scientists and Peruvian officials are investigating a mass die-off of hundreds of dolphins along the South American country's coast.
Officials have been studying possible factors in the dolphins' deaths including a virus or seismic oil exploration that has recently been carried out off northern Peru.
A total of 877 dolphin carcasses have been counted recently along the shore in the northern regions of Piura and Lambayeque, Deputy Environment Minister Gabriel Quijandria said Thursday.
He said experts are studying whether the animals could have succumbed to a virus. "So far, it's the most probable hypothesis, and it isn't the first time it's happened. There have been cases in Peru, in Mexico, the United States," Quijandria said.
An analysis of the beached dolphins' internal organs hasn't found the sort of symptoms that experts have seen in other cases when dolphins have been affected by seismic tests, Quijandria said in a radio interview. He said the seismic tests produce underwater noise that can harm dolphins. But he also said that in Peru it's the first time such dolphin deaths have coincided with seismic work and that the dolphins began dying before the tests started.
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