Hundreds of sea lions and dolphins have washed up along the beaches in Southern California, either dead or sick due to a growing toxic algae bloom.
For the past several weeks, wildlife officials have received thousands of calls from beachgoers, tourists, and residents reporting sick, dying, and dead sea mammals washed ashore from Santa Barbara to San Diego County, according to CTV News Canada.
Marine-life experts believe the culprit is a toxic alga bloom and are awaiting test results to confirm it. The algae are called Pseudo-nitzschia, a marine planktonic diatom genus.
Some species are capable of producing the neurotoxin domoic acid (DA), which is responsible for the neurological disorder in humans known as amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP).
Currently, 58 species are known, 28 of which have been shown to produce DA. A deadly bloom of Pseudo-nitzschia occurred in 1987 in the bays of Prince Edward Island, Canada, and led to an outbreak of ASP which affected over 100 people after consuming contaminated mussels. Three people died.
Toxic blooms due to this organism have been increasing worldwide, and have been linked to increasing marine nutrient concentrations, warming ocean temperatures, and bacterial interactions.
Tissue samples have been taken for testing to confirm that the domoic acid-producing algae is behind the crisis. But Michael Milstein a spokesperson for NOAA Fisheries said this has “all the hallmarks of an algal bloom.”
While algae outbreaks occur every year and kill dozens of sea lions and dolphins, this year’s outbreak is larger and more significant farther offshore, reports The Hill.
“I have never seen anything this intense in terms of the numbers of animals in my 20 years of responding to strandings in this area,” Michelle Berman Kowalewski, founder, and director of the Channel Islands Cetacean Research Unit, told NOAA.
The wave of dead or sick animals is “one of the largest in memory,” Justin Greenman, a stranding coordinator with NOAA Fisheries, told CNN. “It’s completely overwhelming.”
