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Starving baby sea lions washing up on California beaches

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posted on Apr, 10 2013 @ 09:13 AM
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Irrespective of cause, this is very worrying. That large a population washing up dead even from starvation suggests a rather large fluctuation either in food source, or location of food source, does it not? Or did these sea lions simply get lost somehow at sea and fail to find food?

Either way, this is saddening. I know, I know. It's nature. Things die. But nature has also given me empathy and I feel for creatures that suffer and die even if it's natural. (Which I don't think we can definitively say it is in this case anyway.)

Peace.



posted on Apr, 10 2013 @ 10:55 AM
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They're definitely saying it's starvation and that something has happened to their prey. www.npr.org...

After doing some poking around, I read that California sea lions can have their food levels impacted by El Nino weather. The odd thing is that, from the reports, we've been in a weak El Nino to neutral so no go there. Started looking at what California sea lions eat specifically and found this:

latimesblogs.latimes.com...

Apparently, they found a neurotoxin in the guts of a fish that is associated with the diatom, Pseudo-nitzschia. That's a lot of sardines dying. Well, flash forward a little to November of 2012 and you find reports of sardine levels declining by 33% from the prior year. Stimulated this response from Oceana:

oceana.org...

Apparently, Oceana warned that the federal government is allowing still too much overfishing of Pacific sardines in November 2012 and that it could have impact on other species that depend on it. The Pacific sardine population, one of the major food sources for California sea lions, are collapsing.

The Northern Anchovy--No data but warnings of possible overfishing on another food source for sea lions, : animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu...

Pacific Whiting--supposed to be okay.

Pacific and Jack Mackerel--also in not so good shape apparently: www.npr.org...

Shortbelly rockfish--open to fishing but this paper from 2010 is stating that there was a 50% decline in juvenile Rockfish but focuses on its impact on seabirds, not sea lions. www.jstor.org...

Market squid--was purportedly in a boom as of December 2012. Found this article though where Humboldt squid, with bellies full of market squid, had died of the neurotoxin found in Pseudo-nitzschia: abclocal.go.com.../state&id=8918576

Going back to Pseudo-nitzschia, the toxic algae, it always has a small presence off the coast of California with there being cases where the blooms get bigger and cause mass marine animal mortality. Apparently, there has been an increase in both size and frequency in these blooms and this is would have an impact on California sea critter populations. Why the blooms are increasing in size and frequency is apparently unknown. This paper suggests that it could be due to increase upwelling: climate.biol.sc.edu...

So, overfishing and increased toxic algae blooms of Pseudo-nitzschia leading to decline in fish stocks and shortage of food for the California Sea Lion from the looks of it but I'm just somebody with a biology background--not marine biology.
Very troubling though at least BP is off the hook (was slight chance but was subject of nightmares due to having to do so much research on the subject lol). I think it's interesting that the government apparently did not curtail the sardine fishing more. Considering that California is not doing well economically, I guess that losing that $9.7 million of revenue from sardines would be one more sting but it's still pretty sad that money--something that we created--trumps nature yet again.



 
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