A toxic algae bloom that has crept down the coast of California from San Luis Obispo County has been sickening and killing hundreds of sea lions and dolphins. Animals began washing up along the coastline earlier this month in alarming numbers.
The massive bloom produced by a species of marine plankton fueled with a toxin called domoic acid has struck the hardest off Santa Barbara and Ventura counties – staff at the Channel Islands Marine & Wildlife Institute have struggled to keep up, officials said Monday – but affected animals have been seen as far south as Los Angeles and Orange County.
The impacted animals – mostly sea lions and dolphins, but also whales and other marine mammals – are feeding on smaller fish, such as squid, sardines and anchovies, that have eat the poisonous plankton. The toxins can cause seizures and severe brain inflammation and often leads to death by causing irreversible brain damage.
Ruth Dover, co-founder and managing director of the Channel Islands center, said just between June 8 and 14, there were more than 1,000 reports of sick or dead animals, including more than 100 dolphins.
The Marine Mammal Care Center Los Angeles put out a notice on Monday warning beachgoers to stay away from stranded animals, saying they should call the center if they see an animal exhibiting neurological symptoms such as side-to-side head movement or their heads extended back for a long time. The lethargic animals might appear more approachable on the beach, but also pose a greater bite risk to people and their pets.
“We’re in the middle of creating emergency space at our center,” said John Warner, the rescue center’s CEO, adding new patients coming in are in addition to the 55 animals the staff were already caring for. “We’re taking our parking lot and creating pens for patients that are more sedate.”
As of Tuesday, the center had taken in 60 animals showing evidence of neurological impacts. Two died.
Stranded sea lions appeared on beaches in Santa Monica, Manhatten Beach, Redondo Beach and Palos Verdes. The center’s staff has also responded to at least four dolphins dead or dying on the beach.
Warner said the dire situation is costing the center $250,000 it didn’t have budgeted.
“Most of the animals are female sea lions that are either pregnant or just gave birth,” Warner said. The toxins can be passed to their pups.
Sea lion pups typically are born on Channel Island rookeries between June 15 and July 15 each year. So, the timing of the bloom couldn’t be worse and experts don’t know what it could mean for the new pups and how many future strandings can be expected. Typically, marine mammal rescue centers start seeing pups in trouble in November, but the toxin could mean even earlier arrivals.
At the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach, Dr. Alissa Deming said her staff is also treating mostly females who show signs of just having given birth and are lactating. They’ve been found on every beach in the county except for San Clemente.
“If we can get the girls out of their intoxicated state, we might release them earlier in hopes that they can find their pups again,” Deming said. “Sea lions are very good mothers and sometimes take another pup and raise it. We’d like them to have a chance to get back out to the islands again.”
That comes with a risk though, Deming said, because it’s putting them back into the water that may still contain toxins.
PMMC rescue teams have picked up 27 animals with signs of the toxin. Some of the sea lions have died or were too sick to save. So far, 10 are in varying stages of recovery. Seven dolphins washed up on Orange County beaches since last week; in two cases, the dolphins were still alive but had significant seizures on the beach.
Deming gave huge props to lifeguards, who are the first responders, and especially at Huntington City Beach on Saturday, who kept crowds away from a dying dolphin. Beachgoers will try to push the dolphins back into the water, but Deming warns against that instinct.
“If dolphins come up on the beach having seizures, they have to have air,” she said. “If you push them back, they can’t breathe. It’s best for people to call the rescue center and let the lifeguards handle it.”
Scientists from NOAA CoastWatch and the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System continue to monitor the bloom, officials said, and estimated it to be about 25 to 50 miles offshore and in water as deep as 2,000 feet.
“It’s a pretty major event,” said Clarissa Anderson, director of the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System.
She said while blooms happen, what makes this one unique is that there is no evidence of the toxin close to shore and it is uncommon for dolphins to be involved. Last year, at least 400 sea lions were sickened by a bloom off Santa Barbara, but it did not affect dolphins. That bloom appeared to be closer to shore.
The fact that more than 100 dolphins have been involved so far indicates that the bloom is much farther out and in deeper water, Anderson said.
Michelle Berman Kowalewski, founder and director of the Channel Islands Cetacean Research Unit, said in her 25 years, she’s “never seen anything like it.”
“Right now, we’re approaching 100 dolphins in 11 days,” she said. “In the peak in 2002, we got four a day.”
Many of the affected dolphins were pregnant females, males and juveniles, all of which would have a hearty appetite, she said, leading them to consume large amounts of anchovies.
“I think the link of anchovies is a big one,” Kowalewski she said. “Even if you get a big bloom, you don’t get as many dolphins if you don’t have anchovies.”
Kowalewski said, though she’s not an oceanographer like Anderson, she had an inkling this summer might be ripe for a big bloom. This year, the winds in the Santa Barbara Channel blew south from Point Concepcion and pushed the water to the Channel Islands, where they hit and looped back again, creating an eddy effect.
“When you get an eddy, it will upwell nutrients that are deep,” she said, which feed the algae bloom. “The rain this year added extra nutrients, and the influx of the nutrients affects the food chain.”
Anderson said there are a lot of blooms, but “how we can guess if one will be a toxic event is what we struggle with as scientists.”
Test results from necropsies of sea lions that stranded last year showed the highest levels of animal toxins ever recorded.
“It makes me think things are getting worse,” Anderson said. “We all feel, in the harmful bloom community, we’re seeing more toxic events as time goes on. Organisms have been here forever, blooming forever, but in the last 20 to 25 years, the toxin levels have been increasing. It could be temperature and change in the nutrients that are being upwelled. The temperature change could help the toxic levels rise.”
She and other experts are unsure how long this bloom will last.
If you see a stranded animal in Los Angeles County, call 800-399-4253; in Orange County, call 949-494-3050.
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