Drug Traffickers Blamed In Dolphin, Whale Deaths

A chemical that drug traffickers use to mark ocean drop sites may to be blame for the mysterious deaths of dozens of dolphins and whales off Mexico’s west coast, scientists said Friday.

Forty-two dolphins were found dead on beaches near Culiacan on Mexico’s northern Pacific on Friday; at least three dead whales have been discovered in the same area in the last week.

Fishermen also are reporting schools of dead sardines floating in the Gulf of California.

Biologist Benito Mejia of the University of Sinaloa said in a telephone interview that the whales were probably heading into the Gulf to breed when they died.

Scientists say they are looking into a cyanide-based chemical used by drug traffickers as a possible explanation for the die-off, the largest reported in at least a year.

The phosphorescent chemical, known as Natural Killer-19 or “NK-19,” is used to guide low-flying aircraft to areas in the ocean where bales of drugs have been dumped from passing ships.

Jaime Loya Chairez, an assistant to the state attorney general’s office, was quoted by the daily Noroeste de Culiacan as saying that NK-19 was probably the cause.

However, Greenpeace Mexico director Roberto Lopez says a combination of pollutants may be responsible for the deaths, which he says are not uncommon in the area.

He cited the discharge of waste from local fish-packing plants, emissions of pesticides and antibiotics from coastal shrimp farms and agricultural and residential waste running directly into the ocean.

The decomposed state of most of the mammals washed ashore on the Tetuan and Novolato beaches may complicate the investigation. The first of the dead whales to wash up Feb. 7 near a tourist beach has already been towed to a dump.

“We are sending a team to take samples from the animals, to check chemical and pollution levels,” said biologist Luis Miguel Flores, director of the School of Ocean Sciences at the University of Sinaloa.

Mexico City environmental activist Homero Aridjis contends that the Mexican government may be ignoring NK-19 as a possible cause because of the sensitive nature of drug trafficking in U.S.-Mexico relations.