Everyone loves sea lions. But did you know that their health is a pretty important marker in what we should and shouldn't be eating, too?
Well, that's because they eat the foods that we do too. They have a pretty voracious appetite for all things seafood - think crabs, clams, that sort of thing. Well, per the NBC Bay Area, there's been a pretty unfortunate sea lion sickness epidemic recently.
And the illness seems to be stemming from "domoic acid poisoning". Domoic acid is a neurotoxin that can accumulate in fish and shellfish. It can cause toxicosis when too much gets into a sea lion's (or a human's!) body at once.
And the Marine Mammal Center has highlighted just how dangerous this is - and why us humans should be concerned about our barking friends.
"This toxin is evolving in terms of its unpredictability," Giancarlo Rulli of the center explained.
"This used to be a seasonal disease that we would see during the summer". But now, it's a year-wide phenomenon - and things are getting worse. The Marine Mammal Center has already rescued over 100 sea lions this year - surpassing their upper average of 90.
And the recent trends are even more concerning - in just a one week span, they rescued a shocking 30 sea lions, a much higher number than usual.
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Scientists Have Issued a Warning Because of the Sea Lions
Of course, sea lions getting sick can tell us what food we probably should be avoiding. So, scientists have been quick in warning against eating certain foods.
"[Their illnesses] can tell us about our health too," Rulli explained. "So when we see these upticks in responses to sick sea lions it's really a cue for us to reach out to the CA Department of Public Health so they can reach out and begin testing things like crabs, and things like mussels, and clams, and razor clams."
And that's exactly what they've done. The California Department of Public Health has advised people to avoid eating sport-harvested mussels - these are the ones that people have picked themselves. They also issued a warning against eating razor clams specifically in Humboldt County.
We hope that the sea lions feel better soon - and the shellfish, too. We're just as hungry as them, after all!
