A mother dolphin and her calf swim alongside one another at a SeaWorld park. Credit: Facebook / SeaWorld San Antonio

Slightly more than 20% of dolphins swimming along the Texas Gulf Coast have been exposed to fentanyl, according to a study published last month by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

Researchers from TAMU-CC, along with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Precision Toxicology Consultancy, began testing dolphins along a stretch of Texas Gulf Coast between Redfish Bay and Laguna Madre in 2022 after a deceased cetacean was found to have had high levels of the synthetic opioid in its blubber.

The study also included 12 historic dolphin tissue samples from the Mississippi Sound collected in 2013.

Of the 89 dolphins analyzed, 18 tested positive for fentanyl. What’s more, all of the six post-mortem dolphins tested positive for the drug. Another 30 dolphins tested positive for other pharmaceuticals, including opioids, muscle relaxers and sedatives.

Researchers told KSAT that the drugged dolphins could be the result of wastewater being released into the bay. However, Dara Orbach, an assistant professor of marine biology and TAMU-CC’s lead investigator on the project, insinuated that drug smuggling in the Gulf of Mexico also could be a top cause.

“We did find one dead dolphin in Baffin Bay in South Texas within one year of the largest liquid fentanyl drug bust in U.S. history in the adjacent county,” Orbach said. “And the Mississippi dolphins comprised 40% of our total pharmaceutical detections, which leads us to believe this is a long-standing issue in the marine environment.”

There were an estimated 5,566 drug-related deaths in Texas between August 2022 and August 2023 with 45% of those involving fentanyl, according to the Texas Tribune.

Texas Health and Human Services estimates that an average of five Lone Star State residents died every day last year due to fentanyl poisoning.

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...