The Trump administration cuts threaten efforts to combat hatching killing sea lions

Redondo Beach – The targeting by the Trump administration of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will endanger efforts to save sea lions, dolphins, sea birds and other wild animals by poisons that are hidden offshore, say marine scientists, public health officials and animal rescuers.

Federal research and financing play a crucial role in allowing scientists to monitor the conditions of the ocean – including the Domo acid epidemic which now kills hundreds of marine mammals in the Californian coast.

The data provided by the NOAA and other efforts supported by the federal government help scientists to determine when and how these epidemics occur; Provide help and aid to sickly animals that capture and convulse on the beaches of the region; And test and examine their bodies once they died to see if it was the toxin that killed them and how it killed them.

Public health officials of states and premises also use the data collected by the NOAA and its partners funded to determine the epidemics of algae which could affect human health – as a current opinion urging people to avoid consuming oysters, mussels and clams off the coast of Santa Barbara for another toxin, a paralytic poisoning on shell decapacces.

“Everything we do – all of this data we collect – it could not be done without the federal government,” said Clarissa Anderson, director of the California Ocean Observation System from Southern California to the SCRIPPS Institution of Oceanography of the UC San Diego. “We would have none of this information without them.”

The NOAA did not respond to a request for comments. A spokesperson for the NOAA previously declared that the agency “remains dedicated to its mission, Provide appropriate information, research and resources which serve the American public.

Although the share of the agency's budget will be reduced and how many researchers will be deleted, is still unclear. Researchers who work with the agency were invited to expect a reduction of at least 20% of the agency's workforce and a 30% reduction in the budget.

Domoic acid The epidemic is currently hitting The southern and central coast of California, from San Diego to Monterey, led hundreds of animals to wash the dead shore. Sea lions and dolphins have been observed rigid with convulsions, aggregated and confused. Many sea lions show an assault or swivel their heads and necks in wild and disorienting circles.

A Times journalist saw this week a sea lion withdrew from surfing and on the beach just south of the Jetée de la Plage d'Hermosa.

A sea lion rests on the sand at Redondo Beach.

(Corinne Pretill / Los Angeles Times)

His head was swung from top to bottom and from one side to the other, his snob nose tracing the arcs in the morning sky. Really, his head arched as if to take the sun, then collapsed back as if his bones had liquefied.

A few meters from the animal, a dead west greb – a sea bird – was motionless in the sand, its head resting on a wooden gnarl. A few meters away, another bird, perhaps another Grebe, its belly and its head obscured by the sand, was also motionless. Near her was the body of a Dead Sea Lion.

Animals may have been poisoned by ingesting fish contaminated by domoic acid, a toxin released by common coastal phytoplankton Pseudo-Nitzschia. The fish eat toxic plankton and mammals and sea birds eat toxic fish, say experts.

Scientists know that there is an event of Domoic acid that occurs in offshore because they were able to detect flowers of Pseudo-Nitzschia Via the NOAA and the national satellites of the aeronautical and space agency and sampered the plankton directly through technology, tests and protocols designed or funded by the NOAA.

They use robotic gliders This can go far offshore and sample below the surface of the water. They also use stations on the ground From top to bottom of the coast, where they can monitor what is going on directly offshore. And they use robotic microscopes This can sample and see plankton, algae and other microscopic creatures turn, float and swim in the water column (California has the largest network of these “flow cytobots,” said Anderson).

They also put themselves on the NOAA research ships – or ships of the NOAA research partners, such as the Los Angeles goalkeeper – or coordinate with scientists from the NOAA who can collect and test samples, to go further at sea.

And as the frequency and severity of these events increases, the need for these services also increases.

A sea lion recovers at the Navy Mammal Care Center in San Pedro.

(William Liang / For Times)

Over the past four years, At least four Domoic acid events occurred along the central coasts and southern California. In the past, such events were sporadic, which occurred once every four or five years. The most obvious impacts are animals on the beaches, but they also affect coastal farms of crustaceans and other aquaculture entities.

Daniele Bianchi, deputy professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences of the UCLA, studied what causes this species of normally benign plankton to start secreting fatal toxins.

Bianchi said that he and students graduated from his laboratory – many of whom obtain funding from the NOAA – still do not understand all the factors. But their work shows a correlation between the increase in nitrogen levels in water (a sub-product of the storm and the runoff of wastewater) and the production of domoic acid.

“Understanding to what extent they could become more frequent in the future, or is there something we can do to better manage coastal waters? These are the questions that the Noaa supported,” said Bianchi.

Researchers have also learned that plankton flowers – both toxic and benign – tend to coincide with relaxation events, when deep and cold water is projected to the surface, offering a nutrient and energy infusion to plants, seaweed and invertebrates dragging into the water column.

When these upwelling events occur and plankton and algae are starting to appear in large numbers, other creatures – such as anchovies and sardines – move to food, which then brings sea lions, sea birds and dolphins.

And while these animals feed and fall sick, such as the sea lion observed on Hermosa Beach, a network of stranding organizations rushes to take care of sick and dying animals.

These organizations, which include the Marine Mammal Center, based in Sausalito, and Channel Islands Marine and Wildlife Institute, based in Santa Barbara, are mainly funded by private foundations and donations, but many also receive federal funding. And as these events become more frequent and increases in gravity, the same goes for the financial needs of these organizations.

For example, Sam Dover, director of the rescue organization for channel islands, said that he generally buy a load of 40,000 pounds of frozen fish per year to feed the sick and injured animals that he and his team shake and rehabilitate. This year? “We already had to fill it. Oh my God. So these are things like that. “

These organizations are also based on NOAA scientists and researchers who are stationed from top to bottom of the Pacific coast, from San Diego to Alaska, who help the exchange network to understand what is going on in the wider ocean to fish in stocks, ocean temperatures, seasonal food sites, etc.

“Whether it is a question of consulting their scientists around the approach to be used when there is an unusual presentation of an animal in the waters that we do not expect – whether it is a whale, often, or a seal or a sea lion – or a decision on the way or if and where to release an animal that has been in our care, or to place satellite labels on animals that guarantee the leave of Jeff. “Many practical decisions are made week after week, day after day.”

Signaling outside the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Silver Spring, Maryland.

(Bloomberg / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“So when you ask what it looks like without Noaa? You delete one of the many essential services they provide, and it's like the game of this child-this one where you start to remove the parts, and you finally know that it will fall,” he said.

And for the animals that die? It is the scientists and laboratories of the NOAA who carry out necropsies to determine the cause of death – was it a poisoning with domoic acid? Or have they ingested a piece of hard plastic? – And what organs toxins have targeted.

The role that the agency plays in the well-being of the Californians, its creatures of the wild ocean and its economy are underwent, said Anderson.

“We all know the importance of the agency in terms of forecasting of the weather,” she said. “But it is the same for their work in the ocean – we can have no future knowledge of any earth system without these types of data and models.”