Starving baby sea lions washing up on California beaches

More than 1,000 ailing sea lion pups have washed ashore in Southern California over the past three months, and a national fisheries expert says a lack of food source is likely the cause, not radiation as reported by some media outlets.

www.nbcbayarea.com...

Absolutely heart wrenching. I think it's fairly safe to say that we're managing to kill our oceans. The article goes on to state that it is probably not due to radiation and I would agree. Radiation sickness is pretty darn obvious. The question is what is happening in our oceans so that this kind of thing is occurring. The article sites a possibility of their food source moving and the pups being unable to reach it. That kind of makes sense in that it's just pups that are washing up on shore and not adults. However, what happened to that food source--did it move or did it die off? I guess we'll know one way or the other if adults start washing up elsewhere.

As strange as it may sound, I wonder if that has anything to do with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Ocean currents travel around the world and so, between the oil and the Corexit that went into the oceans at unprecedented levels, it makes me wonder if the areas of death that were being quietly noted are simply making their way around the globe on the oceanic currents. Was a deep concern of mine as I was researching the Maconda Well spill.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


well it could be starvation, or oil or pollution. I really dont think it should matter what the cause is, more so its a sign that the oceans are in need of some help.

That is very sad. I am sucker for animals, especially babies.

Obviously something is happening, and it could likely be a combination of pollution and over fishing,

In this world, money reigns supreme and it is incredibly sad to see the effects of all of the greed on our environment.

I had seen the news on this problem with the sea lions, this is very troublesome as the record numbers can not be denied, they are flooding the coast no only in the west but the east also, Florida is having the same problem.

Whatever is going on is in both side of the Pacific and Atlantic, so I have to agree that it can not be all related to radiation, it is a food problem but, why?

In my opinion it has to be changing (evolving?) weather patterns, currents, tides etc etc..

Here in Ireland and the UK (&europe too) we have been suffering miserable cold weather because of the Gulf Stream flowing over Spain and Southern Europe combined with cold air from Siberia travelling west and holding there,.....

I'm convinced that we are experiencing changes in our global weather due to various man made effects and others and situations described in this thread are due to changes (food sources moving based on temp changes or current changes).

I do think we have already crossed a 'tipping point' and will have to learn to adapt Very soon....
Regards
PDUK

reply to post by PurpleDog UK


I was watching some videos last night about something along these lines. There was a guy who saw what he thought was a dog in the road, so he stopped, and when he opened the door a sea lion pup jumped into the car, and wouldn't get out. Another couple was in a five star hotel, went out onto their porch, and a pup was in one of their chairs.

One of the biologists said that for some reason the mother seals and sea lions are weaning their pups too early for some reason this year. This is the first time they've seen this happen.

I was listening to the "Vice" video (recommend great reporting) on Liberia and they were talking about pirates. Basically they said their local waters had been fished out (big company boats) and they resorted to being pirates or starved. Maybe the seal momma (s) can not get enough to eat and have abandoned their pup (s) due to no milk?

Radiation from Japan can not be good for sea life (or anything else for that matter) either short term or long term but the total effect may not be know until the results are pathetic.

If they knew how to fix the reactor problems without pouring 1000s of gallons of sea water on the nuclear fire I can only suppose they would; but alas, the more they pour the more goes into the pacific.....can't be good for anything IMO.

reply to post by marg6043


This is why I'm wondering how much it has to do with Deepwater Horizon incident. Unlike our continents, the oceans are all interconnected through the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt as shown here:

science.nasa.gov...

The Gulf of Mexico is basically the primary breeding ground for a majority of sea life in the Atlantic. Additionally, through the loop current of the Gulf running into the conveyor belt, it's hard to how far the very toxic combination of Corexit and oil went or how the hit to this section of the food chain for the Atlantic oceans may effect the greater oceanic system. Hard to say if it is involved, especially since BP made sure to sign on the majority of marine researchers and forced them to sign non-disclosure agreements, which critics observed effectively silenced scientific research but, of course, BP denied the claim. www.cnbc.com...

Why they aren't eating is the thing to wonder about. Are we destroying their food with the chemistry of the sewers? Corexit like chemicals are added to the water at sewage plants to precipitate out the solids. The soaps we use are not natural anymore as are the medications that we pee out. There are a lot of things we must change to fix the problem, not just a few.

People want to shift the blame but we are all guilty of contributing to this mess. We are concentrating things to toxic levels. Without nature we cannot survive without great cost and unnecessary work. I predict that we will have a severe reduction in humans worldwide within five years. My luck it will be five years and six months since I made a prediction

reply to post by rickymouse


Oh I agree that just about everything that we're doing is probably going to end up polluting the oceans in one way or the other. We use something on land, it gets in the soil, trickles down into the water table through rain/irrigation, water table can influence creeks, which then drag it all out into the oceans. I honestly think that any argument about global warming is pointless when what we're doing collectively is doing just as much damage and destruction to our biosphere. We're all very culpable in that. However, BP did it in a very direct hit at highly toxic levels in one of the great breeding grounds of the oceans. They single handedly did more damage than any single one of us could probably do in our lifetimes. Overall though, I do agree that, collectively, we do massive amounts of damage. That's why I try to minimize my footprint as much I possibly can--no pesticides, no fertilizers, and my cleaning products are all natural (and not the lying versions of being natural).

Originally posted by WhiteAlice
reply to post by rickymouse

 

Oh I agree that just about everything that we're doing is probably going to end up polluting the oceans in one way or the other. We use something on land, it gets in the soil, trickles down into the water table through rain/irrigation, water table can influence creeks, which then drag it all out into the oceans. I honestly think that any argument about global warming is pointless when what we're doing collectively is doing just as much damage and destruction to our biosphere. We're all very culpable in that. However, BP did it in a very direct hit at highly toxic levels in one of the great breeding grounds of the oceans. They single handedly did more damage than any single one of us could probably do in our lifetimes. Overall though, I do agree that, collectively, we do massive amounts of damage. That's why I try to minimize my footprint as much I possibly can--no pesticides, no fertilizers, and my cleaning products are all natural (and not the lying versions of being natural).

Why were these oil companies allowed to drill in an area that allowed this accident to last so long is the question. There should have been a big organization that can fix these problems quickly in place in the gulf. Before creating a possible problem make sure it can be fixed. The government doesn't need to be involved in this, the oil companies can form this emergency program. It would only cost pennies a barrel to keep an organization like this in the area. It may wind up saving them money in the longrun. I think this should be implemented mandatory worldwide myself, no government involvement in this except for making sure that the emergency centers are not just shell operations. Well, maybe Shell isn't the right word, Shell is an oil company. You know what I mean.

Originally posted by rickymouse
Why were these oil companies allowed to drill in an area that allowed this accident to last so long is the question. There should have been a big organization that can fix these problems quickly in place in the gulf. Before creating a possible problem make sure it can be fixed. The government doesn't need to be involved in this, the oil companies can form this emergency program. It would only cost pennies a barrel to keep an organization like this in the area. It may wind up saving them money in the longrun. I think this should be implemented mandatory worldwide myself, no government involvement in this except for making sure that the emergency centers are not just shell operations.

Well, maybe Shell isn't the right word, Shell is an oil company. You know what I mean.

The oil companies would rather bury problems such as these and the additional costs of setting up such an entity would not be something that they would be willing to field. In the case of Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, Exxon actually tried to lie about the spill even occurring and claimed that it wasn't their oil in the water. Unfortunately for Exxon, oil from each well has its own signature. In the case of the Macondo Well, BP was outright falsifying how much oil was spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, misleading even governmental agencies in the enormity of the spill. And, since you mention Shell, all I need to do is point out what Shell has done in Nigeria. There are few things that I would consider to be truly evil in this world. The oil companies are one of those few things. Aside from their own tendency towards misrepresenting their own spills and damages, there has been, historically, a problem with the agency that was responsible for overseeing the oil companies' activities. Just a few years ago, reports on the activities between the MMS and the oil companies that they were intended to provide oversight on were still surfacing: The government can't manage them and they would not manage themselves. www.nytimes.com...

The oil companies are probably one of the most powerful groups in the world. They are also inextricably tied to one another through joint ventures and mergers left deliberately quiet. This allows them a whole lot of money in which to wield their power in a variety of ways from acquiring patents and research in sources of alternative energy to acquiring drilling permits and so on.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


I'm beginning to think that our governments around the world are nothing but puppets of the big money. I always knew that they were highly influenced by the big companies but didn't realize that they could not do anything even if they wanted to. :shk:

reply to post by WhiteAlice


I agree, I can see how the oil spill could have now an impact on marine life, perhaps the mothers of the baby sea lions exposure to the crap that was dumped into the water in the gulf are showing the side effects in this generation.

What people do not understand is that when we poison the environment the side effects are not always immediately show, but generations after will be the ones with most affected.

This is going on now with humans also, the generations of humans now are born with more markers to diseases than their predecessors, we are the results of those that came before us and their impact in the environment.

2011 analysis conducted by Earthjustice and Toxipedia showed that the dispersant could contain cancer-causing agents, hazardous toxins and endocrine-disrupting chemicals.[116] Environmental scientists expressed concerns that the dispersants add to the toxicity of a spill, increasing the threat to sea turtles and bluefin tuna. The dangers are even greater when poured into the source of a spill, because they are picked up by the current and wash through the Gulf.[117] According to BP and federal officials dispersant use stopped after the cap was in place; however, marine toxicologist Riki Ott claimed that dispersant use continued after that date.

Two years after the spill, a study found that Corexit had increased the toxicity of the oil by up to 52 times.

I guess we are witnessing now the results of the gulf oil spill "cleaning Efforts" with chemicals and pollutants like Corexit.

Originally posted by rickymouse
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

I'm beginning to think that our governments around the world are nothing but puppets of the big money. I always knew that they were highly influenced by the big companies but didn't realize that they could not do anything even if they wanted to. :shk:

The public, business, and politics have always existed in an overlap with each other. However, I would say that as companies have increased in size and economic power, it's quite possible that the fulcrum between the balance of power of the public and business has shifted towards business. Or another way of looking at it could simply be that every market has 5 major companies essentially "sharing" the market. Where I lived some 19 years ago, this 5 way split was actually evident on the local level--Chevron, Texaco, Shell, 76, and BP each shared roughly 20% of the local market for gasoline sales. What happened here, though in the time that I was privvy to such matters, Shell merged with both Texaco and Chevron to give you an idea as to how that shifted that 5 way market split. And it was a-ok'd by the FTC. What were they going to do? Anger our oil suppliers?

You can find this 5 way market split in just about every major market. I'd say that we have either almost monopolies or oligopolies within our markets and this would lead to unprecedented influence and sway upon our governments. That's just my very depressing thought on the matter. Also, the revolving door between companies and regulatory agencies has been swinging pretty rapidly. It swung like mad at the MMS and it was swinging like mad at the SEC. Who knows what other ones are the same way.

To marg--yep!

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Starvation, resulting from lack of fish for the predators to eat.

Declines in fish population from over-fishing (from fleets like the massive Chinese industrial fishing fleet that was reported by scientists last week to be, most-likely, vastly undereporting their catches).

Declines in fish population from growing dead-zones (low oxygen that can't support fish life) resulting from land-based fertilizer pollution.

Declines in fish population from... loss of population viability and habitat due to pollution.

Mostly though, unregulated, over-fishing by fleets using modern ocean vacuums targetting schools of fish using incredibly accurate modern technologies.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


NOAA has classified this as an Unusual Mortality Event.

Unusual Mortality Event (UME) has been declared for California sea lions in California from January 2013 through the present.

www.nmfs.noaa.gov...

This is unprecedented, so tragic....I hope they find the cause soon.

lets make gmo's for them to eat

OF COURSE IT WASN'T RADIATION. COME ON YOU MAKE IT SOUND LIKE FUKUSHIMA MELTDOWN IS STILL GOING ON AND ALL THAT RADIATION WATER SPREAD AROUND IN PACIFIC OCEAN. WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR A MORON?!? I CANT TAKE THIS NO MORE IM GONNA GET SOME MCDONALDS.

and fyi the growing birth defects in USA are because of woman stressing on Gun Control. IF WE BAN ASSAULT RIFLES PREGNANT WOMAN WONT STRESS SO MUCH AND HAVE DEFECTED BABIES !!!

What if their food is getting killed by radiation?