Beluga Whales dying of cancer

In the St. Lawrence Estuary in Quebec hundreds of Beluga Whales have died of intestinal cancer over the last 30 years.  Aluminum smelters dumped their poison into the Estuary until 2004, then Canada finally shut them down.  5 years latter Cancer is still killing the Whales, “Cancer is the consequence of a lifetime of accumulating mutations,” said Daniel Martineau, a professor of pathology at the University of Montreal., who added that the deadly disease “is exactly what you would expect to find in animals that are eating from these sediments.” 

The poison in the sediments where the whales feed is called POPs.  POPs are a combination of various chemical waste products including PCBs that are a by-product of the manufacturing process of aluminum.  The whales eat mussels that have absorbed the POPs in the sediment and the poison works it way into the Beluga’s intestinal tract after years of eating the mussels.  “Often the POPs interact directly with an animal’s DNA by disrupting its structure and leading to mistakes in replication. These mistakes accumulate over the animal’s lifetime, leading to tumors and, possibly, death. In other cases, the chemicals attach to DNA and turn genes on or off. Pollutants can also contribute to cancers by distracting an animal’s immune system, allowing certain types of viruses to cause tumors.”  Carol Meteyer, a wildlife pathologist with the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis.

Here is the really sad part.  “Mothers dump their contaminant loads to their first born pups,” said Gina Ylitalo, a research chemist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle, Washington, who led the study. So that is why it could take another 20 years or so for the cancer to die out.  Unfortunately the cancer just doesn’t disappear after you shut off the poison faucet. 

It is fairly rare for wild animals to be killed by cancer but the case of the Beluga whales in Quebec is not the only incident. Scientists have seen it in California sea lions along the central coast, North Sea flounders and in Ohio’s Black River catfish.  Elevated levels of POPs were found in these mammals and fish; in the case of the sea lions it was 85% higher than in sea lions who did not have cancer.

The cancer found in the Belugas can be looked at as another example of the canary in the coal mines.  Scientists say that the cancer patterns found in the Estuary could reveal cancer patterns found in human populations.  When both people and mammals are living in an area where there is an abundance of cancer causing POPs cancer will most likely show up first in the mammals.  This should set off an alarm for us to quickly move in and hopefully save some lives. Unfortunately not enough people are paying attention to helpless mammals.  Usually people have to start dying in order for someone to pay attention. 

I, obviously, am not saying it’s somehow OK for the mammals to be our canaries in the Estuary. But if in general, “society” was aware that aggressive monitoring of the planet’s animal’s health could possibly help safeguard their own maybe more attention would be paid to their well being.  Sad scenario for sure but at this point we will continue to try for the best but take what we can get.