Endangered seals suffer massive die-off.Since May, a catastrophic epidemic has stricken the largest social group of Mediterranean monk seals, one of which is seen cavorting here. Of 270 seals living in a pair of caves on West Africa's Mauritanian coast, only about 70 have survived the disease, Albert Osterhaus told Science News. A virologist virologist microbiologist specializing in virology. at Erasmus University Erasmus University Rotterdam is a university in the Netherlands, located in Rotterdam. The university is named after Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a 15th century humanist and theologian. in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Osterhaus heads an international group investigating the die-off In the Aug. 28 Nature, the team reports that most of the seals they examined harbor a dolphin morbillivirus Morbillivirus /Mor·bil·li·vi·rus/ (-vi?rus) measles-like viruses; a genus of viruses of the family Paramyxoviridae, including the agents of measles and canine distemper. Mor·bil·li·vi·rus n. , a virus similar to the one that causes distemper distemper, in veterinary medicine, highly contagious, catarrhal, often fatal disease of dogs. It also affects wolves, foxes, mink, raccoons, and ferrets. Distemper is caused by a filtrable virus that is airborne; it is also spread by infected utensils, brushes, and in dogs. Osterhaus linked an earlier die-off of Baltic seals, caused by a related morbillivirus, to immunity-suppressing organochlorine or·gan·o·chlo·rine n. Any of various hydrocarbon pesticides, such as DDT, that contain chlorine. pollution (SN: 712194, p. 8). In the monk seals, however, he found no signs of a predisposing factor. Only about 600 Mediterranean monk seals remain in the wild, mostly in groups of about 20. Osterhaus hopes that if many of them are inoculated with a distemper vaccine developed for their Baltic kin, they will weather this threat to their survival. |
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