Stranded otter had testicular cancer

[The Straight Story]

Stranded otter had testicular cancer

BY MICHAEL ARMSTRONG
STAFF WRITER

A distressed male otter found near Bishop's Beach last month suffered from advanced testicular cancer, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist reported last week. The otter had been reported hauling itself with difficulty on the beach on March 29 and was picked up by a marine mammal stranding network volunteer. After Dr. Dorothy Sherwood of Homer Veterinary Clinic evaluated the otter in consultation with Dr. Pam Tuomi of the Alaska SeaLife Center, the otter was euthanized.

Dr. Kathy Burek of the Alaska Veterinary Pathology Service did a necropsy and found the otter had an enlarged left testicle with tumors, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Verena Gill. The otter, about 15 years old, had a ruptured spleen with tumors. Lymph glands and the liver also had extensive tumors. Gill said the liver normally looks smooth like a tongue, but the otter's liver had numerous mottled nodules.

http://homernews.com/stories/040809/news_3_002.shtml

What causes cancer in otters?

[mike_c]

1. exactly the same things that cause cancer in other animals, including humans....

Cancer is essentially a breakdown in the "multicellular contract" that controls cell division in multicellular organisms. There are a whole bunch of reasons that can happen, but they all result in cells ceasing to "cooperate" with their neighbors and becoming immortal, "go it alone" renegades that divide whenever they can, rather than when (or if) the rest of the organism needs them to.

[DCKit]

2. Sounds like a pretty advanced age to boot.

Old cells no longer have as much ability to self-repair.

Add that to the fact that otters eat shellfish, and shellfish absorb all the toxic chemicals we dump into the oceans....