Dead baby dolphins found in Mississippi, Alabama

photo MAResearch intern Rhiannon Blake, center, with Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Miss., is framed by two other unidentified Institute workers as she takes tissue and organ samples from a dead male baby dolphin discovered on the beach in Gulfport, Miss., on Monday, Feb. 21, 2011. The bodies of several baby dolphins have been found washed up along the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines within the last month. (AP Photo/The Sun Herald, James Edward Bates)

GULFPORT, Miss. - Marine biologists are reporting that some baby dolphins, some barely three feet in length, are washing up along the Mississippi and Alabama coasts.

Researchers tell The Sun Herald that 17 young dolphins, either aborted before they reached maturity or dead soon after birth, have been collected on the coasts of the states in the past two weeks - both on the barrier islands and mainland beaches. They said that is about 10 times the normal number for the first two months of the year.

Moby Solangi, director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, said it's too early to tell why they died.

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