During the oil spill the number of adult dolphins being washed up on these shores rose from the usual figure of 30 to 89.

However, it’s now the first breeding season since the spill and the impact of the spill is now affecting new born dolphins, with baby dolphins being aborted or simply dying before they’re even born.

As Moby Solangi, Director of the Institute of Marine Mammal Studies, says:

“For some reason, they’ve started aborting or died before birth. The average is one or two a month. This year we have seventeen and February isn’t even over yet.”

It’s likely that we’ll continue to see these unexpected effects on wildlife until the Gulf of Mexico completely recovers.

BP has stated that it believes that the Gulf of Mexico will have fully recovered by 2012 but this optimism is questioned by many people from the science community. In many places the sea floor is showing no signs of life as it’s covered by a 10cm thick layer of dead animals and oil.

The victim, Dawn Brancheau, was apparently grabbed from the side of the pool and pooled under water. This follows other reported attacks in both 2004 and 2006, as well as a fatality back in 1991, courtesy of the same killer whale.

Following the news, Suzi Morris, UK Director for WSPA, said:

“The shocking news that an animal trainer has died after being attacked by a killer whale at the SeaWorld amusement park in Orlando, Florida, is a sad reminder of the inappropriateness of keeping these animals in captivity.”

“Killer whales are highly intelligent mammals that are taught to perform against their will by their human trainers. Marine mammals experience dreadful stress when forced to endure these unnatural interactions in their concrete prisons as it is not the way they would naturally behave in the wild. They do not enjoy ‘playing’ like this in this extremely traumatic environment.”

Peta, the animal welfare charity, also backed up WSPA’s views, announcing that they have been asking SeaWorld to stop taking wild killer whales into captivity for years.

However, despite opposition by animal charities it doesn’t look like the practice of putting on killer whale shows will be ending anytime soon at SeaWorld.