Sea Lion Research Paper

Sea Lions Dying at Increasing Rates

In five months alone, over 3,000 sea lion pups, at a point teetering towards death, washed ashore on Southern Californian beaches, fifteen times more than in past years, due to toxic algal blooms. Merriam Webster calls algal blooms, “rapid and excessive growths of a plankton population.” Since 1998, scientists have been aware of sea lions and their pups being intoxicated by domoic acids from toxic algal blooms. Agricultural and suburban areas are the main culprits as excess fertilizer and pesticides from fields and lawns are washed away in urban runoff and travel to our oceans by stormdrain. The nutrients in fertilizers and pesticides are overfeeding the algae, producing toxic algal blooms that expel poisonous
chemicals. These pollutants are gathering on America’s west coast from Southern California to Alaska. Farmers and landscapers benefit from the use of fertilizers and pesticides to grow plants or produce faster without any weeds or troublesome insects; however, they are not held accountable for their overuse of these products that are harming our environment and starving sea lions. The problem is, fertilizers and similar pollutants are contaminating our waters and overfeeding algae populations, causing toxic algal blooms to poison sea life from shellfish to sea lions. The solution is rather simple: spread awareness to farmers, landscaping companies, and even home gardeners using fertilizers or pesticides on their lawns, fields, or gardens at fundraisers to raise money for organizations researching potential cures for the spread of domoic acids. By solving this problem, sea lions will regain a healthy food source, we will have saved a key piece in the ecosystem, and funds and workers that are currently stressed and overextended by the increase in injured sea lions will regain normality. For years, alarmingly increasing amounts of sea lions and their pups have been starved and nearing death due to toxic algal blooms overfeeding from urban runoff, so we as citizens and potential causes of the problem have a responsibility to finally raise awareness to users of pesticides and fertilizers.
Sea lions have been affected in the worst ways and their well-being has been gradually declining for years at our hands. Fertilizers and pesticides are causing algae to emit toxins into the ocean that harm sea life.According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, algae produce toxic blooms when they overfeed on nutrients and such as phosphorous, nitrogen, and carbon, ingredients mainly found in fertilizers and pesticides. Such nutrients are not usually found in such abundance in oceanic environments. Therefore, the overfeeding is due to fertilizer and pesticide found in runoff, brought to the oceans via storm drain from agricultural or suburban areas. Humans are using more than necessary amounts of these pesticides that are harming the ocean in runoff due to the excess amounts. The National Center for Coastal Ocean Science states that harmful algal blooms do occur naturally; however, human activities have increased such toxicity in the waters such as
pollution, altering the food chain, global warming, and irrigation flow. As harmful effects on the environment are caused by humans, the ocean’s environment has also began to deteriorate in condition. Toxic algal blooms do not contain such high levels of toxins in nature, henceforth, human activities have altered environments and their functionings for years prior by using excess resources and allowing these toxins to seep into the storm drains. Sea lions are unintentionally passing on these toxins and sickness to their vulnerable pups, causing more and more pups with little immune systems built up to obtain this sickness. According to scientists Lauren Rust, Frances Gulland, Elizabeth Frame, and Kathi Lefebvre at Marine Mammal Science, sea lions are consuming the toxic domoic acid in their shellfish as and it is being passed on to their pups through the mother’s milk. These pups have barely built up their immune systems to their surroundings, let alone the toxic acids being consumed in their mothers’ shellfish and the one thing they think for sure to be safe- their mothers’ milk. The acts of humans are harming not just these sea lions, but their pups with barely any defence against the disastrous, polluted blooms. The toxic algal blooms caused by the polluted runoff are affecting shellfish that give ASP with a long list of side effects, including death, to the sea lions. The NSW Department of Primary Industries Water states Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning (ASP) is causing amnesia, sickness and vomiting, cramps, diarrhoea, seizures, and disorientation. Certain cases even include comas, eventually followed by death. The sea lions are becoming ill because the food sources the find are poisoned by ASP. This causes them to take on most of the listed symptoms above and eventually starve because of them. The disorientation has caused them to not be able to find their fish, or even families, causing large amounts of sea lions to wash ashore and be separated from their family. The pups are ingesting so much toxic milk and some even toxic shellfish that they eventually end up stranded as the currents guide them to think their family is in that area.