By Gregory Barber. From the air, the Pacific algal bloom doesn’t look like much of a threat: a wispy, brownish stream, snaking up along the West Coast. But it’s causing amnesia in birds, deadly seizures in sea lions, and a crippling decline in the West Coast shellfish industry. Here’s what you need to know about it, from what this bloom has to do with the drought to why these toxins could be a real threat to the homeless. . .

The algae produce a compound called domoic acid, a type of amino acid that leads to a condition commonly known as “amnesic shellfish poisoning.” Shellfish and some small fish, like sardines and anchovies, feed on the algae and concentrate the toxin in their flesh. When animals further up the food chain—like birds—eat those fish and shellfish, the domoic acid seeps into the bloodstream and eventually the brain, where it attacks cells in the hippocampus, the brain’s command center for memory and learning. The result: amnesia-stricken birds that will repeatedly fly into windows, and sea lions that writhe on the shore, plagued by seizures. Both are symptoms of rapidly firing neurons in the hippocampus, which will eventually burn out and kill the animal. Beaches have been littered with dead fish, birds, and sea lions up and down the Pacific coast since May—all the way up to Alaska, where NOAA is investigating the deaths of fin whales in connection with the toxin. . .

So just how big is this thing? Bigger than researchers have ever seen: a patchy stream that stretches from Southern California up along the Alaskan coast. The hot spot blooms that appear each spring are merging for the first time, Trainer explains. Though the combined mass has ebbed and flowed over the past four months, it hasn’t let up; her team finds algae each time they journey out to sea, with no signs of abatement soon. And it’s also unusually potent. “These are the highest levels of toxicity we’ve ever seen,” says Raphael Kudela, a professor of ocean sciences at the University of California-Santa Cruz. “It’s a truly extraordinary phenomenon.” (Read more from “Deadly Algae Have Highest Level of Toxicity Ever, Spreading Rapidly Throughout Pacific Coast; No Signs of Abatement” HERE)

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Shocking Death of 30 Whales off Alaska Could Be Linked to Toxic Bloom

By RT. The death of 30 whales off the coast of Alaska may be linked to a rapid growth of toxic phytoplankton in the local marine environment that can paralyze as well as kill, a University of Alaska scientist told RT.

While a federal investigation has been opened into the giant mammals’ mysterious demise – a situation that’s been labeled an “unusual mortality event” – one of the leading theories is that an algal bloom is to blame, as they have been the cause of many similar events in the past.

“It’s a bloom of phytoplankton in the ocean that actually releases toxins,” Dr. Bree Witteveen, a marine mammal specialist at the University of Alaska, told RT. “Those get accumulated into various preys and it works its way up the food chain, and can cause paralysis and death.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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