16 years ago under the auspices of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) a working group was formed to specifically focus on marine mammal unusual mortality events around the US coastline. Since that time it has investigated scores of similar events and is detecting a rising number of die-offs.

Recently the rapid-response team sprang into action again after 64 dead bottlenose dolphins and numerous fish washed ashore on the Texas and Louisiana coasts within roughly three weeks. Experts are examining the stranded dolphins' organs, taking tissue samples and extracting their lymph nodes so that NOAA scientists elsewhere can do DNA and RNA analyses. The local Coast Guard has lent air support to survey the waters for dead animals. In the summer and autumn of 2005, scores of bottlenose dolphins, manatees and turtles suddenly started dying off the southwest Florida coast. In October of that year alone, 22 dolphins became stranded and died, compared with the usual monthly average of three. After taking samples from 130 stranded dolphins, scientists concluded that red tide - an algae bloom that creates a neurotoxin known as brevetoxin caused the massive die-off

At the moment the panel is handling eight such cases simultaneously,an unprecedented high that reflects the environmental pressures on marine mammals. The working group now has 12 permanent members and enlists a shifting group of volunteer experts from the United States and overseas to help diagnose each die-off. It was formed initially after two large dolphin die-offs in the late 1980s off the East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. The group which enlists a variety of experts that include epidemiologists, clinical veterinarians, immunologists, and ecotoxicologists has studied 39 incidents so far.

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