A parasite appears to be capable of killing healthy, adult otters that showed no other signs of disease.
But the microscopic parasite could infect any warm-blooded animal or find its way into the food chain, the study said. That includes marine animals like mussels, clams, oysters and crabs that are consumed raw or undercooked, corresponding study author Melissa Miller with the Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a written statement.infections in sea otters for 25 years, and I have never seen such severe lesions or high parasite numbers,” Miller said of the dead otters.
The parasite strain, dubbed the COUG genotype, was first isolated in the wild from a mountain lion in Canada’s British Columbia during an investigation of the parasite’s outbreak in humans in 1995 and a feral pig in eastern California, according to the study authors. The Canadian government reported there were 110 acute human infections identified and none were fatal.The first otter washed ashore in San Simeon in San Luis Obispo County in February 2020, according to the study.
Numerous lesions were found throughout the nervous systems in the otters but were not found in the brain, which is typically one of the organs affected by the parasite, according to the study authors. All four otters showed obvious signs of inflammation in their body fat, Miller said, and under the microscope, their tissue was flush with parasites, including faster-growing and actively multiplying invasive cells.Typically, it takes time for the parasite to invade and multiply in the brain, but the sparse number of parasites in the brains of the four otters suggests the infection spread quickly, Miller said.
“We still have much to learn,” Sinnott said in a written statement that accompanied the study. “Larger-scale studies are needed to understand the potential impact of infection by the COUG Toxoplasma strain on sea otter populations, how geographically dispersed it is, how it is being introduced into the ocean and what other animals might be affected.”
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