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Is the dolphin virus coming?

  Let’s keep our fingers – or our flippers – crossed.  So far this year, only a few dolphins infected with a deadly virus have ventured down the Indian River Lagoon as far as Vero Beach.  That is what I was told by Adam Schaefer, an epidemiologist at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute north of Fort Pierce.   But this past summer, enough dolphins in the northern part of the lagoon showed signs of the virus to worry scientists.  Lesions were on the dolphins’ skin.  They were skinny, swam erratically and made coughing sounds through their blow holes.  The virus was blamed for the deaths of hundreds of dolphins along the Atlantic Coast between New York and Virginia.  Last year, there was an unprecedented die-off of dolphins, manatees and pelicans in the northern part of the lagoon, apparently caused by the disappearance of sea grass on which small creatures feed and not the virus.  The virus did invade the lagoon along the Treasure Coast in the 1980s and between 2004 and 2007.  If you see a dolphin with lesions on the skin, don’t touch it.  You won’t catch the virus, but you could pick up another disease carried by the dolphin.  Instead, call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.  For 88.9 FM, this is Paul Janensch.