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Photo: Center for Whale Research

New study: Tainted salmon poisoning orcas

(From komonews.com) Vancouver, Bristish Columbia – Resident killer whales in Puget Sound and off the west coast of North America are being poisoned by eating salmon laced with toxic PCBs, according to a study on the dwindling orca population. Researchers in British Columbia found enough polychlorinated biphenols other man-made pollutants in the whales” main food – chinook salmon – to jeopardizing the large orcas.

The levels of PCBs in the salmon are relatively low, but even in small amounts there was enough to pose a significant risk, said Peter Ross of the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sydney on Vancouver Island.

 

Ross says whales are particularly sensitive because they eat massive amounts of fish over a long life – killer whales can live for 80 or 90 years – creating a massive buildup of toxins. That means the whales, particularly the southern resident population, have become some of the most contaminated marine mammals in the world.

“Killer whales are long-lived, top-of-the-food-chain animals. They have small, isolated populations. They have very large habitat needs,” said Ross, supervising researcher on the study published in the current issue of the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

“If we’re trying to protect 84 animals in an area where we’ve got 8.5 million people, we’ve got a bit of work to do.”

In more than 30 years since PCBs have been banned in Canada and the U.S., contamination levels in killer whales have dropped by 250 per cent, Ross said.

(By Associated Press)

 

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