Sentinels Under Attack
Toxic algae that poison the brain have caused strandings and mass die-offs of marine mammals — barometers of the sea's health.
By Kenneth R. Weiss, Times Staff Writer
July 31, 2006
....Neuschwander (a sea lion) was exhibiting the classic symptoms of domoic acid poisoning, a condition that scrambles the brains of marine mammals and causes them to wash ashore in California as predictably as the spring tides.
They pick up the acid by eating anchovies and sardines that have fed on toxic algae. Although the algae have been around for eons, they have bloomed with extraordinary intensity along the Pacific coast for the last eight years.
The blooms are part of a worldwide pattern of oceanic changes that scientists attribute to warming waters, excessive fishing, and a torrent of nutrients unleashed by farming, deforestation and urban development....
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As they watch the oceans disgorge more dead and dying creatures, scientists have come to a disquieting realization: The proliferation of algae, bacteria and other microbes is making the oceans less hospitable to advanced forms of life — those animals most like humans.
"Marine mammals share our waters, eat some of the food we eat and get some of the same diseases we get," said Paul Sandifer, chief scientist for the Oceans and Human Health Initiative of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"If environmental conditions are not good for these sentinels of the sea, you can believe it won't be good for us either," Sandifer said....
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-ocean31jul31,0,7653060,full.story
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