Download Pollution Impacts on Marine Mammals

POLLUTION IMPACTS ON MARINE
MAMMALS
Kyra Jean Cipolla
April 20th 2017
ESS 215
OVERVIEW
• Direct effects of pollutants on marine mammals
• Cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises)
• Pinnipeds (seals, walruses, sea lions)
• Indirect effects of pollutants on marine mammals
PURPOSE
• Marine mammals are facing challenges posed by human activities
• caused marine mammal mortality
• The purpose is to identify what pollutants effect cetaceans and
pinnipeds and how these effects threaten the lives of marine mammals
across the globe.
DIRECT EFFECTS ON CETACEANS:
WHALES
• Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) and pollutant exposure
• polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), hexachlorobenzene (HCB),
hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs), DDT and its metabolites (like DDE), & more
• All samples had exposure to the pollutants that they measured
• DDT and PCBs had the most significant presence in sampling = immune
system depression
• Males displayed significantly higher concentrations compared to females.
• off-load contaminants to their offspring during pregnancy.
• Long-range transport of POPs is the main reason for the introduction of
these chemicals to Antarctica.
• Feeding in summer
DIRECT EFFECTS ON CETACEANS:
WHALES
• Beluga Whales and PCBs, DDT, mercury and lead exposure
• Study in St. Lawrence estuary
• Exposure had adverse effects on different aspects of the normal physiology of
beluga whales
• Functional and morphological changes in thyroid gland and adrenal cortex
DIRECT EFFECTS ON CETACEANS:
DOLPHINS
• Pacific Killer Whales, Orcinus orca, and PCB exposure
• Study in British Columbia
• resident (North and South) and transient killer whales
• PCBs have caused reproductive impairment, skeletal abnormalities,
immunotoxicity and endocrine disruption
• Males become increasingly contaminated as they grow older, while females offload contaminants to their offspring during pregnancy and lactation
• Marine mammal-eating transient killer whales were particularly contaminated with
PCBs
• with the southern residents, represent the most contaminated cetaceans
studied in the world
• This shows profiles of total
Toxic Equivalents (TEQ 98) that
suggest that PCBs present the
greatest risk to killer whales
• Graph shows that they surpass
the toxicity threshold
established for seals
DIRECT EFFECTS ON CETACEANS:
DOLPHINS
• Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins and DDT and PCB exposure
• Anthropogenic activities have resulted in the release of unprecedented amounts of
POPs into the Pearl River Estuary, China during the last three decades which has
exposed POPs to dolphins
• hearing loss, infertility in males
• Common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) & Fraser's dolphin (Lagenodelphis hosei)
and POPs
• POPs in the South Latin America: Bioaccumulation of DDT, PCB, HCB, HCH and
Mirex in blubber
• all samples had some organochlorine pesticides
DIRECT EFFECTS ON PINNIPEDS
•
Northern Fur Seals and Organohalogen contamination
• The POPs measured from blubber samples included PCB, DDT, chlorobenzenes,
chlordanes, and mirex
• Although many legacy POPs have been banned from use for decades, in general
they have been slow to decline in top predators because of their persistent nature
especially in the Arctic.
•
Pacific Walrus and toxic substance exposure
• Pesticides, HCH, DDT as well as the heavy metals Cd, Pb, and Hg were found in
samples
• Cadmium, a heavy metal, and DDT found in all samples
• Cd= liver damage
INDIRECT EFFECTS
• Effect of Nutrient Pollution on Marine Water Quality
• Submarine groundwater discharge
• Scientists found that the largest amount of macroalgae, low species diversity, and
the highest concentrations of nitrogen in tissues of algae, coastal groundwater, and
marine surface waters occurred in locations with anthropogenic activities
• like sugarcane farms and wastewater injection wells
CONCLUSION
• Whales, dolphins, walruses, seals, and other marine mammals contaminated by
pollutants
• such as cancer, immune deficiency, reproductive abnormalities, and alterations in
growth and development
• Importance for humans to look at pollution threats to marine mammals
• Alaskan natives rely on the northern fur seals harvests as part of their subsistence
diet.
• It is important from a human health perspective to consider the meat and
blubber from the northern fur seals
• risk associated with long-term exposure to pollutants present in whales and
dolphins’ environment and might be a good model to predict health problems that
could emerge in highly exposed human populations over time
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