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Troubled Waters For Our Sea Creatures

View project abstract for the grant funding this research (R831705)

CBS News Video Clip : Marine biologist Astrid Schnetzer discusses the explosion of toxic algae and its effect on pelicans and sea lions.

January 30, 2007

Ocean-borne toxins are making our sea creatures are making some pelicans disoriented and dangerous. (CBS)

"Some people think that might have to do with marine and coastal pollution, river runoff, sewage, all these things that go into the water."

Astrid Schnetzer, a marine biologist

LOS ANGELES (CBS) - Remember Alfred Hitchcock's, "The Birds?" Frightening fiction? It was based on a real incident near Santa Cruz, California in 1961, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports.

Scientists believe the birds were whacked out on acid - domoic acid, a toxin produced by an ocean algae invisible to the naked eye.

It's probably what drove a pelican, nicknamed "Crash," right through the windshield of a car driving along the coast near Los Angeles recently.

"Maybe she thought she was over water and was trying to dive for a fish," a rescue shelter employee says.

The algae occurs naturally, but over the last eight years, researchers have seen an explosion of it along the Pacific Coast. The blooms are lasting longer and are growing much more toxic.

Scientists are alarmed and perplexed.

"The algae are too tiny to see. You look under a microscope, this is full of organisms," says Astrid Schnetzer, a marine biologist.

It becomes a problem as it moves up the food chain. Fish eat the toxic algae and sea lions - like the pelicans - eat the tainted fish. And like the birds, they become disoriented, dangerous, paralyzed. Many of the sea lions don't survive.

"I've never seen anything like it," Peter Wallerstein says. He's been rescuing sea mammals for 22 years. He's used to seeing a few sea lions suffering from demoic poisoning, but lately there have been hundreds up and down the California coast.

They're "struggling with a neurotoxin exploding in their brain," Wallerstein says.

There are so many that some months rescue centers can't treat them all.

"The pups are pretty much dying because the moms don't have the ability to take care for them," Wallerstein says.

So what is going on?

"We've been intensely sampling for the last two years," Schnetzer says.

Scientists like Astrid Schnetzer and a team from USC are collecting, testing, trying to figure out what's causing this explosion of toxic algae.

"Some people think that might have to do with marine and coastal pollution, river runoff, sewage, all these things that go into the water," Schnetzer says.

Whatever the reason, the fact is poisonous algae are spreading into coastal regions around the country. In California, scientists fear the sea lions are like the canary in the mine.

"If it's a 400-pound sea lion and it's taken out by a toxin like that, it should make you think," Schnetzer says.

They try to get the survivors healthy enough to return to the sea, but many never fully recover.

The Joint Ocean Commission, which keeps an eye on our oceans said today we're not doing a very good job or protecting them -- it gave the country a C-Minus. You can read more of this report here.

You can read more about the Caron Lab , and click here for more about the Whale Rescue team.

You can also access the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center.

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