Contaminant-Related Suppression of Delayed-Type Hypersensitivity and Antibody Responses in Harbor Seals Fed Herring from the Baltic Sea

POPs in free-ranging pilot whales, sperm whales and fin whales from the Mediterranean Sea: Influence of biological and ecological factors

“…Moreover, both the species were in average surpassing the threshold of 210 pg WHO-TEQ g À 1 lw in blubber, proposed as starting point of immunosuppression in harbour seals by Ross et al (1995). Every species responds to contaminant toxic effects in different ways, resting on their health status, nutrition state, body size and age; therefore caution must be made in applying such threshold level for toxicity assessment of large cetaceans (Kannan et al, 2000;Schwacke et al, 2002).…”

The relationship between land use and emerging and legacy contaminants in an Apex predator, the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), from two adjacent estuarine watersheds

“…Dolphins in the estuarine waters of Charleston, SC, were reported to have significant concentrations of multiple POCs (Fair et al, 2010(Fair et al, , 2007. POC exposure in marine mammals has been associated with a number of adverse health effects in marine mammals, including compromised immune systems (de Swart et al, 1994(de Swart et al, , 1996Ross et al, 1996), susceptibility to infectious diseases (Aguilar and Borrell, 1994;Hall et al, 2006;Kannan et al, 1993;Ross et al, 1995Ross et al, , 1996, reproductive impairment (Addison, 1989;Jepson et al, 2005;Reijnders, 1986), and cancer (Martineau et al, 1994;Ylitalo et al, 2005). Although several studies have reported linkages between POCs and health effects, the toxicological implications of contaminants in marine mammals remain uncertain (Aguilar et al, 2002;Colborn and Smolen, 2003).…”

Is Marine Mammal Health Deteriorating? Trends in the Global Reporting of Marine Mammal Disease

“…Indirect effects are less obvious, but there is no doubt that overt morbidity and mortality among marine mammals have resulted from terrestrial pathogens spreading to the ocean, as well as from harmful algal blooms and epidemics of virulent viruses and bacteria (Geraci et al, 1999;Miller et al, 2002). Although the role of anthropogenic factors and climate change in these die-offs is uncertain, there is a compelling body of evidence indicating that persistent organic pollutants can affect marine mammal immunity (DeSwart et al, 1994;Ross et al, 1995;Hammond et al, 2005) and the exposure of individuals to these compounds may have played a role in some viral mass mortality events Aguilar and Borrell, 1994). Furthermore pathogens of terrestrial origin, such as Toxoplasma gondii and antibioticresistant bacteria are causing disease in marine mammals, and appear to originate in fresh water run-off (Miller et al, 2002;Stoddard et al, 2005).…”