A Parasite is Killing Sea Otters. Is Cat Poop to Blame?
upstart writes:
Scientist Melissa Miller was seeing something in California sea otters that she had not seen before: an unusually severe form of toxoplasmosis, which officials have confirmed has killed at least four of the animals.
"We wanted to get the word out. We're seeing something we haven't seen before, we want people to know about it and we want people working on marine mammals to be aware of these weird findings," said Miller, a wildlife veterinarian specialist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW). "Take extra precautions."
In March, a study from the DFW and the University of California, Davis, revealed that a rare strain of the parasite, never before reported in aquatic animals, was tied to the deaths of four sea otters. The strain, first seen in Canadian mountain lions in 1995, had not been previously detected on the California coast."This was a complete surprise," Karen Shapiro, with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, said in a statement. "The COUG [toxoplasma strain] genotype has never before been described in sea otters, nor anywhere in the California coastal environment or in any other aquatic mammal or bird."
[...] Toxoplasma is often found in cat feces. Otters, which live along the shoreline, can be exposed to the parasite in rainwater runoff-all four cases scientists studied came in during the heavy rainfall season.
Toxoplasmosis infection is common in sea otters-which have a roughly 60 percent chance of being infected in their lifetimes, Miller said-and can be fatal, but this strain is of particular concern.
However, Miller warned against unfairly demonizing cats.
"I don't want this to be a war on cats," she said. "I have two cats. What I try to do is practice what I preach and what I know as a scientist: I keep my cats indoors all the time and I make sure to dispose of their litter into something that will not leak into the environment."
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.