Scientists Find Mercury, Cadmium And Neurological Damage In Pilot Whale Brains From 2012 Beaching

[hatrack]

Chemists at the University of Aberdeen said they had found cadmium in all the organs of adult long-finned pilot whales which stranded in 2012, including their brain. The research shows for the first time that cadmium – known to pass into the brains of infant and unborn whales - had also passed across the so-called blood-brain barrier in adult whales.

They said their findings also suggested that mercury concentrations could be increasing high enough in the seas “to lead to additional toxic stress in the long-lived marine mammals”, with higher concentrations increasing with age. The team, lead by Dr Eva Krupp, an environmental analytical chemist, tested the remains of 21 long-finned pilot whales which died in a mass grounding between Anstruther and Pittenweem in Fife in September 2012.

There have been a series of recent whale strandings, with the most dramatic in the UK taking place in Norfolk in January and early February. Six sperm whales washed up over a series of days along beaches in East Anglia, in a stranding linked to other recent groundings by sperm whales in Germany and France. Cetacean experts are currently testing samples to investigate possible reasons why.

EDIT

The university said that in three of the whales aged nine years or older, the mercury concentrations were higher than the toxic levels which would cause severe neurological damage in humans. The industrial revolution and the use of mercury in gold-mining have greatly increased mercury concentrations in the seas, leading to their absorption by marine species. “As well as an increased concentration of mercury in the brain as the whales become older, we see a similar effect with cadmium, which has not been previously reported,” Krupp added. “It is known that cadmium can penetrate the blood brain barrier in the new-born or developmental stages but it was not thought to do so in adults. Our findings are significant because we can demonstrate for the first time that cadmium is in the brain tissue and that its levels increase with age.

EDIT

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/11/toxic-chemicals-found-in-beached-pilot-whales-in-soctland

[Gregorian]

1. I never suspected they were sunbathing.

I imagine most people don't make the connection between the deaths, and what WE are doing.

Just keep breeding.