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Mysterious outbreak killing Arctic Alaska ringed sealsA mysterious and potentially widespread disease is thought to have contributed to the deaths of dozens of ringed seals along Alaska's Arctic coast. Scores more are sickened, some so ill that skin lesions bleed when touched. The animals are an important subsistence food for Alaska Native hunters and their families, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has proposed listing them as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. RELATED: Alaska walrus hauled out on beaches show symptoms similar to ringed seals ailment In July, biologists with the North Slope Borough's Department of Wildlife Management began receiving reports of ringed seals hauled out on beaches, an unusual behavior since the animals usually prefer the water or ice. Since then, they've found at least 100 seals with telltale mangy hair and skin lesions, mostly while traveling by four-wheeler along 30 miles of Beaufort and Chukchi sea coastline outside Barrow. At least 46 of those seals have been found dead, and experts aren't sure if the disease is killing them or if other infections and polar bears are proving fatal once the seals become feeble. "Right now we're leaning toward it being a virus, and that could weaken their immune system," said Jason Herreman, a borough wildlife biologist studying seals and polar bears. The Department of Wildlife Management has never documented a similar outbreak in the North Slope region, Herreman said. Scientists don't know the scope of the problem because since ringed seals are difficult to track and haven't been counted for decades. Hundreds of thousands are thought to live in the region. Reports of nearly 150 other seals with the illness have come in from villages outside Barrow, population 4,200, as well as from Chukotka, Russia, and Tuktoyuktak, a village on the northwestern corner of Canada, Herreman said. North Slope biologists are trying to determine the magnitude of the problem in the other countries, he said. Borough biologists have sent numerous tissue samples, from dead seals and others still alive, to laboratories around the country. Still, they have no answer. "When you're dealing with a pathogen and you don't know what it is, even whether it's bacterial or virus, it takes a lot of work to narrow it down and isolate it," Herreman said. "But I'm a little surprised they haven't come up with something yet." The Northwest Arctic Borough has also posted a notice on its website warning people to watch for sick seals in Northwest Alaska villages. Enoch Shiedt, natural resource coordinator for the Maniilaq Association in Kotzebue, said he's received a few reports of sluggish seals hauled out on beaches this summer. But he hasn't been able to confirm the sightings. One sighting occurred on the Kotzebue waterfront several weeks ago, but by the time he arrived, the seal had been rolled back into the water and was gone. He's concerned the illness will spread up the food chain, affecting other animals and hunters near Kotzebue Sound. "I'm scared they might pass it on one way or another and the whole ocean could be affected," Shiedt said. Folks in the Barrow region also are worried. Many of the Slope's Inupiat residents are about to begin hunting for seals, and some are wondering if they are safe to eat, Herreman said. The wildlife department has posted fliers around the borough -- titled Natchiq On Our Beach. Natchiq means ringed seal in the Inupiaq language. The borough has also gone on the radio, asking villagers to report sightings of marine mammals that appear to be weak. The wildlife department is advising hunters to notify it of any sick seals they harvest and, if they choose to eat them, to cook the meat thoroughly.
http://enenews.com/ Leaked TEPCO report: 120 billion Becquerels of plutonium, 7.6 trillion Becquerels of neptunium released in first 100 hours — Media concealed risk to public Tokyo Researchers: Radioactive plankton are “so heavily contaminated” — Food chain fears — Continuously carried southward from Fukushima From the provided link: "About Enenews.com is dedicated to providing the latest information pertaining to the Fukushima nuclear crisis. I’m not an anti-nuclear activist. In fact I never thought much about nuclear power before, even though I live near two nuclear plants. I’m not a lawyer trying to sue, nor am I affiliated with anyone involved with nuclear power. I’m someone who thought the coverage of Fukushima and its consequences was not being given the attention it deserved, so I started a website with my own time, money, and effort. ..." The place appears to be a one-person activist-page. Actually, appears to be a garden-variety paranoiac-conspiracy site. I suggest they take in account the radiation levels in the affected areas, factor this in with the number of months the Fukishima Daichi plant has been spewing toxic waste and PERHAPS THEY MAY JUST FIND THE ANSWER THEY WERE LOOKING FOR!!!Certain type of toxic materials in high amounts can produce all the symptoms the seals have shown.Check out the CDC's website for more info. It's no mystery what radiation & fallout do (and don't do). We've known what really happens for over half a century - and this isn't it. This is a bad script for a TV thriller that will never see the light of day. I wonder if sea otters could contract this...... This story ran a chill right up my spine. As Aapa said, the number of seals observed is probably only a fraction of all those infected. What if this can be passed to predators, such as polar bears, and scavengers? Has anyone thought that the Japan earthquake and brakedown of the nuke plants might have caused this? All that toxic nuke waste being dumped into the ocean; or has anyone thought what the Bible says about the last days in Matt: 24 Jesus talks about pestilent sicknesses. This previously unheard of condition coincides with the Arctic ice loss and the increased traversing of the Northwest Passage by ships untracked or controlled by any nation. As with any pristine environment, influx of alien substances can wreak havoc on a previously balanced ecosystem. The eradication of Native Americans from Smallpox introduced accidentally or deliberately by European invaders is the worst on this continent. In Europe it was the Bubonic Plague introduced from Asia. One of the major concerns in animal disease is the ability of a pathogen to "jump" species. The affected seals that are observed hauling out in populated coastal areas probably represent just a small fraction of the total amount of seals that are ill. I wonder if any biologist has tried to take sick seals into a controlled environment to see if any of these ill animals have recovered spontaneously, or if tney have been tracked with devices that would give any indication of the mortality rate of those who have been observed to be affected to a greater or lesser extent. Epidemiology is not always able to ascertain the causes of disease, nor its methods of contagion. It took almost ten years before the CDC had a good grip on the source, methods of transmission and the character of HIV. The nachik are an integral and substantial part of the ecology of the Arctic and their oil has provided a traditional food source for the Inupiat, the Inuit and Greenlandic peoples. I assume that is the case in Siberia as well. I hope sufficient resources are being devoted to the exploration of this phenomonon. That is what you get when they dump engine oil overboard Besides disease, has exposure to radiation been considered or checked? |
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