Dolphin virus outbreak in Atlantic is deadliest ever
Globalpost
If you listen to Tepco and Japanese officials, you are bound to be confused about how bad Fukushima’s lasting effects really are. One moment they say everything is under control at the Fukushima nuclear plant, and the next they’re admitting radiation levels are 95% higher than originally stated. One would have to be awfully trusting or awfully ignorant to think the radioactive water spilling into the ground and eventually the sea wouldn’t spread throughout the world. The West Coast of Canada and the US is already seeing some effects.
Each day, 300 tons of radioactive water is spilling into the Pacific Ocean. The amount in the ocean and the global water supply is growing every single day, and ultimately impacting wildlife and our food supply. Whether you live on the West Coast or in the middle of the country, this should concern you as it will eventually affect us all.
Here are just a few signs that Fukushima radiation is here:
1. Tuna caught off the coast of California are contaminated with radiation. One test that studied 15 tuna found that all 15 had radiation contamination above and beyond what is normal for that area. Cesium-134 and cesium-137, which the fish were contaminated with, does not sink to the ocean floor, but rather contaminates the sea at all levels where fish swim through it, ingest it, or eat organisms that have already ingested it. Interestingly, the scientists who tested the fish didn’t expect to find contamination, and were sadly proven wrong.
2. Something is causing herring to bleed from their gills, bellies, and eyeballs, according to Canada.com. It’s believed these symptoms could be a sign of viral hemorrhagic septicemia that could be spread into salmon and other fish varieties. While not proven to be linked to Fukushima radiation, there is little doubt the radiation could be impacting immune function of the fish, leading to higher rates of disease.
3. Sockeye salmon populations at historic lows. Recreational and non-aboriginal fisheries in an area of British Columbia have been shut down due to record low numbers of sockeye salmon. Fukushima radiation may be to blame.
4. Radiation off West coast is expected to double in coming years.Projections from German oceanographers estimate radiation levels from Fukushima will cause continued increases in West coast contamination over the next 5 to 6 years.
5. Fish imported from Japan is already contaminated. The Vancouver Sun tested fish imports from Japan and found cesium-137 at alarming rates, contaminating 73% of mackerel, 91% of halibut, 92% of sardines, 93% of tuna, 94% of cod and anchovies, and 100% of the carp, seaweed, shark and monkfish.
6. Radioactive plume expected to reach U.S. coastal waters soon. A large plume of radiation is expected to begin flowing into the coastal waters in the beginning of 2014 and continue throughout 2016. If we’re only thus far seeing the tip of the iceberg, what’s to come could be truly frightening.
7. There is an epidemic of sea lion deaths along the California coastline.
At island rookeries off the Southern California coast, 45 percent of the pups born in June have died, said Sharon Melin, a wildlife biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service based in Seattle. Normally, less than one-third of the pups would die. It’s gotten so bad in the past two weeks that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared an “unusual mortality event.”
8. We could see very high levels of cancer along the West coast due to contaminated fish consumption.
“Look at what’s going on now: They’re dumping huge amounts of radioactivity into the ocean — no one expected that in 2011,” Daniel Hirsch, a nuclear policy lecturer at the University of California-Santa Cruz, told Global Security Newswire. “We could have large numbers of cancer from ingestion of fish.”
Here is a real-time map of radiation levels within the U.S.
- See more at: http://globalresearchreport.com/2013/11/21/8-signs-that-fukushima-radiation-is-blasting-the-oceans-and-u-s/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+globalresearchreport+(Global+Research+Report)#sthash.fULSKbhS.wojaJVGw.dpuf
The deadliest known outbreak of a measles-like virus in bottlenose dolphins has killed a record number of the animals along the US Atlantic coast since July, officials said Friday.
A total of 753 bottlenose dolphins have washed up from New York to Florida from July 1 until November 3, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
That is more than 10 times the number of dolphins that would typically turn up dead along East Coast beaches, said Teri Rowles, program coordinator of the NOAA Fisheries Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program.
“Historic averages for this same time frame, same geographic area is only 74, so you get an idea of the scope,” she told reporters.
The death toll is also higher than the more than 740 strandings in the last major Atlantic morbillivirus outbreak in 1987-1988.
And they have come in a much shorter time period, leading officials to anticipate this event could get much worse.
“It is expected that the confirmed mortalities will be higher,” said Rowles.
“If this plays out similar to the ’87-88 die-off, we are less than halfway through that time frame.”
The cause of death is morbillivirus, a form of marine mammal measles that is similar to canine distemper and can cause pneumonia, suppressed immune function and brain infections that are usually fatal.
There is no evidence that cetacean morbillivirus can cause disease in people.
However, sick dolphins can also have bacterial or fungal infections that do pose risks to people, so beach-combers are advised not to approach stranded animals but rather to call a local stranding network for help.
The virus spreads among dolphins in close contact.
A handful of washed up humpback whales and pygmy sperm whales have also tested positive for morbillivirus, but scientists have not been able to confirm that morbillivirus was the cause of those deaths since the animals were too decomposed by the time tests could be done.
Rowles said efforts are underway to try and determine if the virus might have been introduced into wild bottlenose dolphins from another species, like humpback whales or pygmy sperm whales.
“There are still a lot of unanswered questions about that,” she told reporters.
Among bottlenose dolphins, immunity to the virus has been decreasing, particularly in the younger animals as time has gone by since the last outbreak 25 years ago.
“So we know we had a susceptible population, but just being susceptible alone is not how the outbreaks go,” she said.
“We are trying to understand where this virus came from and how it got into the population in which it is now circulating.”
Recent tests on three other species that have been found stranded — spotted dolphins, harp seals and common dolphins — have all been negative for morbillivirus.
In the meantime, the process of dealing with all the dead carcasses has been “overwhelming,” particularly for local recovery teams, said Rowles.
The Virginia Aquarium alone has had to pick up and do necropsies on 333 animals in just a few months’ time, said Ann Pabst, co-director of the University of North Carolina Marine Mammal Stranding Program.
“You can imagine that it really does become an all-consuming sort of job,” she said.
“They have done heroically well in keeping up.”
Five percent of the dolphins have been found alive on the beaches, but died soon after, NOAA said. The virus has appeared to infect dolphins of all ages, from young to old.
But since the number of dolphins washing up on shore may not represent all of the creatures that are dying, it is difficult to estimate what proportion of the population is sick.
And without a way to vaccinate the wild population, there is little that officials can do but collect the carcasses and continue to study them.
“Currently there is nothing that can be done to prevent the infection from spreading or to prevent animals that get infected from having severe clinical disease,” said Rowles.
- See more at: http://globalresearchreport.com/2013/11/22/dolphin-virus-outbreak-in-atlantic-is-deadliest-ever/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+globalresearchreport+(Global+Research+Report)#sthash.lPZ21ciF.itkECevL.dpufThe deadliest known outbreak of a measles-like virus in bottlenose dolphins has killed a record number of the animals along the US Atlantic coast since July, officials said Friday.
A total of 753 bottlenose dolphins have washed up from New York to Florida from July 1 until November 3, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
That is more than 10 times the number of dolphins that would typically turn up dead along East Coast beaches, said Teri Rowles, program coordinator of the NOAA Fisheries Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program.
“Historic averages for this same time frame, same geographic area is only 74, so you get an idea of the scope,” she told reporters.
The death toll is also higher than the more than 740 strandings in the last major Atlantic morbillivirus outbreak in 1987-1988.
And they have come in a much shorter time period, leading officials to anticipate this event could get much worse.
“It is expected that the confirmed mortalities will be higher,” said Rowles.
“If this plays out similar to the ’87-88 die-off, we are less than halfway through that time frame.”
The cause of death is morbillivirus, a form of marine mammal measles that is similar to canine distemper and can cause pneumonia, suppressed immune function and brain infections that are usually fatal.
There is no evidence that cetacean morbillivirus can cause disease in people.
However, sick dolphins can also have bacterial or fungal infections that do pose risks to people, so beach-combers are advised not to approach stranded animals but rather to call a local stranding network for help.
The virus spreads among dolphins in close contact.
A handful of washed up humpback whales and pygmy sperm whales have also tested positive for morbillivirus, but scientists have not been able to confirm that morbillivirus was the cause of those deaths since the animals were too decomposed by the time tests could be done.
Rowles said efforts are underway to try and determine if the virus might have been introduced into wild bottlenose dolphins from another species, like humpback whales or pygmy sperm whales.
“There are still a lot of unanswered questions about that,” she told reporters.
Among bottlenose dolphins, immunity to the virus has been decreasing, particularly in the younger animals as time has gone by since the last outbreak 25 years ago.
“So we know we had a susceptible population, but just being susceptible alone is not how the outbreaks go,” she said.
“We are trying to understand where this virus came from and how it got into the population in which it is now circulating.”
Recent tests on three other species that have been found stranded — spotted dolphins, harp seals and common dolphins — have all been negative for morbillivirus.
In the meantime, the process of dealing with all the dead carcasses has been “overwhelming,” particularly for local recovery teams, said Rowles.
The Virginia Aquarium alone has had to pick up and do necropsies on 333 animals in just a few months’ time, said Ann Pabst, co-director of the University of North Carolina Marine Mammal Stranding Program.
“You can imagine that it really does become an all-consuming sort of job,” she said.
“They have done heroically well in keeping up.”
Five percent of the dolphins have been found alive on the beaches, but died soon after, NOAA said. The virus has appeared to infect dolphins of all ages, from young to old.
But since the number of dolphins washing up on shore may not represent all of the creatures that are dying, it is difficult to estimate what proportion of the population is sick.
And without a way to vaccinate the wild population, there is little that officials can do but collect the carcasses and continue to study them.
“Currently there is nothing that can be done to prevent the infection from spreading or to prevent animals that get infected from having severe clinical disease,” said Rowles.
- See more at: http://globalresearchreport.com/2013/11/22/dolphin-virus-outbreak-in-atlantic-is-deadliest-ever/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+globalresearchreport+(Global+Research+Report)#sthash.lPZ21ciF.itkECevL.dpuf