Dolphins at risk from eating the same fish we do
source: http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2010/feb/19/dolphins-at-risk/
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- jefftego
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Dolphins are getting sick from eating the same fish we do.
That's the disturbing conclusion of the latest round of federal research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration offices at Fort Johnson, among other sites.
Studies of dolphins in coastal Georgia discovered some of the highest levels of PCBs ever found in the fat of a marine mammal, 30 years after the use of the toxic industrial insulating compound was banned.
"Some of these (dolphins) are living on the edge," said Lori Schwacke, principal scientist at the NOAA Oceans and Human Health Center of Excellence at Fort Johnson. Their immune systems have been suppressed to the point where the outbreak of a single virus could result in mass kills, she said.
Dolphins first were studied in an area around Brunswick, Ga., the location of four federal Superfund contamination sites. But when researchers moved to an estuarine research reserve some 30 miles away, expecting to find healthy dolphin to use as a control population, they found PCB levels just as high.
Because dolphins tend not to roam, the finding suggests that they were getting the chemical from fish they ate; the fish do roam.
"The contaminants aren't settling in the sediment or moving out in the ocean. They're actually moving into the coastal food web," Schwacke said. "And the levels we're seeing in these animals is just incredibly high."
Dolphins eat far more fish than people do, but "with people we care about much lower levels and effects" of contamination.
"We don't want to tell people to stop eating seafood; there are health benefits to eating seafood. It's definitely enough of worry to prompt additional study," she said.
Finding those levels of PCB after 30 years suggests "the things we're doing to our coast now are going to be around for decades."
The National Center for Environmental Health is studying contamination levels and the health of people who live along that coast.
That's the disturbing conclusion of the latest round of federal research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration offices at Fort Johnson, among other sites.
Studies of dolphins in coastal Georgia discovered some of the highest levels of PCBs ever found in the fat of a marine mammal, 30 years after the use of the toxic industrial insulating compound was banned.
"Some of these (dolphins) are living on the edge," said Lori Schwacke, principal scientist at the NOAA Oceans and Human Health Center of Excellence at Fort Johnson. Their immune systems have been suppressed to the point where the outbreak of a single virus could result in mass kills, she said.
Dolphins first were studied in an area around Brunswick, Ga., the location of four federal Superfund contamination sites. But when researchers moved to an estuarine research reserve some 30 miles away, expecting to find healthy dolphin to use as a control population, they found PCB levels just as high.
Because dolphins tend not to roam, the finding suggests that they were getting the chemical from fish they ate; the fish do roam.
"The contaminants aren't settling in the sediment or moving out in the ocean. They're actually moving into the coastal food web," Schwacke said. "And the levels we're seeing in these animals is just incredibly high."
Dolphins eat far more fish than people do, but "with people we care about much lower levels and effects" of contamination.
"We don't want to tell people to stop eating seafood; there are health benefits to eating seafood. It's definitely enough of worry to prompt additional study," she said.
Finding those levels of PCB after 30 years suggests "the things we're doing to our coast now are going to be around for decades."
The National Center for Environmental Health is studying contamination levels and the health of people who live along that coast.
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