Sick marine mammals turning up on California beaches
latimes.com
latimes.com
Picture: https://i.imgur.com/9WFTldz.jpg
You could walk half way down Balboa Pier and still clearly see the bottom of the ocean. I don't think I'd ever seen the bottom of the ocean through waves in any beach in So Cal ever. Never thought of it as dirty so much as just normal for sea water.
Roughly speaking, clear water means less life, less phytoplancton. The algae had gone. Is registered in lakes when water turns more acidic by contamination. They appear pristine, but is an ilusion. The ecosystem is very ill.
At sea this can normally indicate a different water mass by natural processes. Different salinity or temperature, a change on winds, barometric pressure, or sea currents can change this. Is totally normal.
And this could happen also when trowing signifiant amounts of something that kills microscopic life to the water (chlorine to pipelines for example).
Not arguing that they're aren't huge problems with the health of the ocean, but I have seen the water clear up that much a few times a year.
It's really interesting when the visibility is radically different at different depths because of temperature and salinity gradients. Last time I dove it was crystal clear for 15 feet, then a floor of murky green with 2 foot viz, then the clarity opened up about 30 feet down.
To the north and to the south of this particular data point, mammal rescues are normal.
Normal (El Nino) weather patterns seem to explain why these young animals may be having trouble finding food. And while plenty of spectres are thrown about like toxic algae and pollution from storm runoff, no data are actually provided, which IMO is beneath journalistic standards.
What? That is literally what the article says:
> Though the exact reason for the increase in the number of strandings this year is unknown, Higuchi said it could be tied to warmer ocean waters caused by an El Niño weather pattern or excess stormwater runoff from this winter’s rains.
And they go on to provide other possible explanations:
> Necropsy results have yet to come in, but Viezbicke thinks the dolphin beachings have something to do with this year’s rain, which has pounded the state in recent months with a series of *atmospheric river-fueled front.
> It’s possible the storm runoff that washes waste into the ocean has caused a stronger bloom of poisonous algae, which produce a toxin responsible for neurological disorders, Higuchi said. Sickness caused by the algae blooms can cause seizures, which affected three of the dolphins found recently in Southern California.
quoting Justin Viezbicke, stranding coordinator with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hardly unsubstantiated claims as you make it.
Let's not be so quick to dismiss anything related to our poor behavior in relation to ocean toxicity and waste problem, it won't do us good on the long run!
Yes, I know, that was my summary of TFA!
On the surface it would seem that a diet that includes meat from free range (non feed lot) cattle would result in less death (by numbers) and less destruction of natural habitat than a 100% plant based diet (even a small organic farm practices eco system destruction to plant its non mono crops and I assume practices animal trapping/hunting?). Which maybe is fine with some vegans but I think a large percentage don’t consider this. In particular the amount of poison and traps that are used to kill small mammals to produce each pound of carrots, broccoli or other plant life.
The number of small animals killed to feed one person a carnivore diet is far far more than it takes to feed that person a plant based diet.
And corn might be the worst mono crop we have (causing the most destruction to eco systems).
I intentionally said free range (non feed lot cows) for this reason.
As far as methane, I wonder if we could focus on eating small free range mammals, such as rabbits instead. I’m not knowledgeable in what each animal out puts from a methane stand point per pound of food. But it seems it’s clear, from my limited knowledge, if we switched back to more farms leaving the eco system as is and raising free range cattle we would be killing much less animals than a plant based diet.
It takes around 7-10kg of feed to produce 1kg of meat. Eliminate that waste and we can easily feed everyone a healthy plant based diet instead.
https://abc7news.com/health/toxic-algae-bloom-in-oaklands-la...
http://claycord.com/2017/08/07/contra-costa-residents-experi...
https://coastalscience.noaa.gov/news/four-different-algal-to...
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/toxic-algae-clea...
These cyanobacteria levels are unusual--we don't have hundreds of years of records, but we certainly have never seen algae blooms happening regularly every year in so many bodies of water.
This isn't limited to SF, e.g. Toledo has been having regular algae blooms that have shut down their municipal water for years now: https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-environment-watch/lake-eri...
Top predators are a very important part of the modulation of the ecosystem and recover much more slowly than fishes or algae. Is an indicator that something is going wrong. We are also very close to then in the trofic chain so, when there is something in the fish that is killing big mammals, we have a problem also.
I've had two run-ins with basic runoff pollution, swimming in the ocean Brazil and Sri Lanka. In both cases I swam out a few meters and into a mass of garbage: diapers, plastic bags, crisp bags etc.
I remember thinking if it's happening here, it's happening everywhere.
"No rain drop thinks it's responsible for the flood...nor does it care."
I was reading Michael Pollan's famous "Unhappy Meals" essay the other day and I was struck by this paragraph:
"It might be argued that, at this point in history, we should simply accept that fast food is our food culture. Over time, people will get used to eating this way and our health will improve. But for natural selection to help populations adapt to the Western diet, we’d have to be prepared to let those whom it sickens die. That’s not what we’re doing. Rather, we’re turning to the health-care industry to help us “adapt.” Medicine is learning how to keep alive the people whom the Western diet is making sick. It’s gotten good at extending the lives of people with heart disease, and now it’s working on obesity and diabetes. Capitalism is itself marvelously adaptive, able to turn the problems it creates into lucrative business opportunities: diet pills, heart-bypass operations, insulin pumps, bariatric surgery. But while fast food may be good business for the health-care industry, surely the cost to society — estimated at more than $200 billion a year in diet-related health-care costs — is unsustainable."
Unfortunately, I see a lot of parallels between food, health, and nutrition and our approach to climate change, too. Every year we incur more and more costs associated with climate change. Entire cities are destroyed, thousands die, and millions more slowly become more and more sick. The costs are truly unsustainable, but the root problems are never addressed. Instead, the homes are simply rebuilt and the cycle continues. We're committing self-destruction as a species. We don't deserve to find another Earth if we can't sustain this one.
As for the article, it's an interesting data point but who knows, there is a lot we are still learning about the ecosystem. There's clearly some strange patterns this year - warm currents have been bringing up large tuna to just off of Long Beach and that may be affecting plankton and bacterial populations, especially with the organics from the rain runoff seeding the waters. Domoic acid poisoning is a natural phenomenon but it's no joke.
This guy has my favorite spearfishing YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0tqvgU_8Qg
Commercial evisceration zones and orders
Oregon crab: Crab containing viscera harvested from zone K are under an evisceration order effective 12:01 a.m. February 11, 2019, due to elevated levels of domoic acid in the crab viscera. Crab harvested from zones J and L are under an evisceration order effective 12:01 a.m. February 14, 2019, as a buffer zones to zone K. See the link below called Evisceration orders and recall information for details.
California crab: Crab containing viscera harvested from California waters are under an evisceration order effective 12:01 a.m. January 15, 2019, due to elevated levels of domoic acid in the crab viscera. This remains in effect until further notice.
https://www.oregon.gov/oda/programs/foodsafety/shellfish/pag...
Is it related? Looks likely, but not directly quantifiable:
Domoic acid is a naturally occurring biotoxin that does not present danger in small quantities. It becomes dangerous when it is present in large quantities. While we are uncertain of the causes of the influx of domoic acid in our oceans, scientists are researching possible causes for the increased levels. Possible contributing factors include global climate change, eutrophication from fertilizers, agricultural and urban runoff, aquaculture activity, coastal development and consequently the increased exposure to waters and foods contaminated by domoic acid. https://www.oceansoffun.org/domoic_acid_poisoning
The increasing frequency and geographic extent of toxic algal blooms along populated coastlines is generally attributed to human activities https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996450/ 1. Parsons ML, Dortch Q, Turner RE. Sedimentological evidence of an increase in Pseudo-nitzschia (Bacillariophyceae) abundance in response to coastal eutrophication. Limnol Oceanogr. 2002;47:551–558. 2. Hallegraeff GM. A review of harmful algal blooms and their apparent global increase. Phycologia. 1993;32:79–99.