Mysterious California sea lion deaths linked to toxic synthetic chemicals

[Eugene]

Related: Persistent Contaminants and Herpesvirus OtHV1 Are Positively Associated With Cancer in Wild California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus) (Frontiers in Marine Science)

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Source: The Guardian

Mysterious California sea lion deaths linked to toxic synthetic chemicals

Scientists say animals with higher levels of DDT, PCBs and others in their blubber are more prone to cancer triggered by herpes

Guardian staff
Mon 1 Feb 2021 23.10 GMT

Sea lions in California had been dying of a mysterious cancer for decades. Now, scientists say they have finally uncovered the likely cause: toxic chemicals from industrial trash, pesticides and oil refinery waste.

A team of mammal pathologists, virologists, chemists and geneticists have concluded that sea lions with higher concentrations of DDT, PCBs and other chemicals in their blubber are more prone to cancer triggered by a herpes virus.

The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, are the result of 20 years of research, gleaned from tissue samples collected from 394 sea lions.

“(Sea lions are) predisposed to cancer by these high levels of legacy compounds that are still in the environment,” Frances Gulland, a University of California, Davis, researcher who studied the animals for decades at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, told the Los Angeles Times.

Gulland and other scientists studied sea lions that died of various causes along the Sausalito coast. The levels of pollutants found in the sea lions blubber are “among the highest recorded in any marine mammal” the researchers said, likely because of the high levels of dumping along the California coast in the 1970s. DDT, the insecticide which was banned in the US in 1972, takes generations to break down and can accumulate easily in fat tissue.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/01/california-sea-lion-deaths-cancer-toxic-chemicals

[DBoon]

1. Rachel Carson was right

[JoeOtterbein]

2. +1 nt

[mr_lebowski]

3. The entire state is a watershed for the Pacific Ocean and an incredible amount of

pollution has been dumped into it from California (and Oregon and Washington) going all the way back to mid-1800's.

For example, there's a ton of mercury all along the coast, Delta and Bay, left over from industrial operations from 1850-1980 or so. There's also still a lot of lead.

Put DDT and PCB's and doubtless other carcinogens that've washed into the coastal waters on top of those background chemicals, it would (sadly) be shocking if high-fat mammals found off the CA coast weren't loaded with them, and dying as a result.

[Bayard]

4. Incredibly sad......

Score another one for the human race.