Amid the growing health problems for humans in the world, it seems like animals aren’t being spared too. Pelican City Colony in Namibia, infamous for housing thousands of seals and dolphins, has witnessed the death of over 7,000 Cape fur seals.
The dead bodies of the seals have been found at a breeding area of the central region of Namibia, according to a report from the scientists.
The incident gained light in September when charity Ocean Conservation Namibia’s Conservationist Naude Dreyer started discovering the bodies of seals lying lifeless in the Pelican Point colony. The beach, close to the city of Walvis Bay, had been filled with dead seals which brought the attention of the charity associates.
Dr. Tess Gridley, a representative from the Namibia Dolphin Project had a telephonic conversation with APF and said that soon after in October, Mr. Dreyer found a number of dead seals fetuses lying in the same colony.
Generally, the delivery time of these fur seals ranges from mid-November to mid-December. The fetuses littered around the beach highlighted that the female seals had suffered miscarriages.
According to Dr. Gridley, around 5000-7000 of the female seals went through the miscarriage that eventually led to the babies being born dead. Additionally, more dead fetuses are getting found in the area.
However, the reason for these mysterious and disheartening deaths hasn’t been learned as of now. Scientists and researchers say that they can’t put a finger on the exact cause yet and it could be anything like a pollutant, bacterial infection, or even malnutrition.
The probability of malnutrition was mentioned as Dr. Gridley said, few of the females found dead had “thin-looking bodies, were emaciated, with very little fat reserves”. All these points suggest death due to insufficient nutrients reaching the body through food intake. However, it could also mean otherwise through tests.
To arrive at the cause of mass death, scientists have begun gathering samples to run it through suitable testing regimes.
A similar incident had occurred in the year 1994 when around 10,000 seals died and 15,000 fetuses were found dead through miscarriage. The mass death mystery was attributed to factors revolving around malnutrition and starvation. Scientists had come to this conclusion as they suspected a lack of fish to be enough for filling the nutrition portion of all seals living in the colony. Moreover, factors also pointed at a bacterial infection spread in another breeding colony called the Cape Cross. This was close to 116 km away from Swakopmund, the central town of tourist interest.
The executive director in the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, AnnelyHaiphene, in her interview with AFP, spoke about her take on the cause of death. She said that she suspects the seals to have died due to “lack of food”. However, Ms. Haiphenetold awaits the results of the tests still to confirm the same or discover the actual cause.
