And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
WWF study: Are contaminants making Arctic animals sick?
http://www.nunatsiaq.com/nunavut/nvt90604_14.html
The World Wildlife Fund is trying to find out if poisons in the Arctic
environment are affecting the health of Arctic wildlife species.
DWANE WILKIN
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT — The World Wildlife Fund plans to lead a major
study into the health effects of chemical pollution on animals
in the Canadian Arctic, beginning this summer on Baffin
Island and Nunavik.
The conservation group will enlist the help of Inuit to
determine if reported abnormalities in certain species of
wildlife can be linked to known contaminants in the arctic
food chain.
"There are a lot of abnormalities that hunters are seeing,
people who are intimately involved with wildlife," said Susan
Sang, the principal investigator with WWF's wildife toxicology
program.
No solid scientific evidence currently exists to show the link
between contaminants and disease or mutation in the Arctic.
But several concerned Inuit who participated in meetings of
the federal Northern Contaminants Program committee in
Iqaluit last November reported a number of unusual
conditions among the animals they hunt, including blind
caribou, hairless seals and discoloured or diseased internal
organs.
"We want to find out for sure if its's related to contaminants
or not," Sang said.
Findings of the three-year-long WWF study will likely
complement research being carried out the Canadian Wildlife
Service, which recently received funding to study the effects
of contaminants on the growth and reproductive hormones of
polar bears.
"We can correlate some of their findings to what we see
actually in the field," Sang said.
Seeking advice from elders
Phase one of the World Wildlife Fund study will consist in
documenting historical abnormalities in Arctic wildlife by
speaking with Inuit elders.
Select hunters and trappers in a number of Arctic communities
will also be trained to record and collect specimens from
specific animals exhibiting gross abnormalities, Sang said.
This will permit tissue samples to be analyzed in the
laboratory.
"That part would bring us the scientific evidence that these
abnormalities might be related to the contaminants which they
found in the tissue," Sang said.
Depending on the funding it attracts, the WWF's Arctic
Wildlife Abnormality Project could evolve into an ongoing
contaminants monitoring program in the Arctic, something that
aboriginal groups have supported in the past.
High levels of persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals
have been detected in the tissue of wildlife and people who
live in the Arctic and eat high on the food chain.
Pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) accumulate
in the fatty tissues of marine mammals, and in fish and polar
bear livers.
Lower concentrations of these pollutants have been found in
caribou of the eastern Arctic.
Bears with damaged sex organs
Last year, scientists in Norway reported a link between PCB
contamination and the strange mutation of eight polar bears on
Svalbard Island, each born with male and female sex organs.
Norwegian scientists plan a similar study of bears near
Churchill, Manitoba on Hudson Bay this summer.
More information on the incidence of this condition, known as
hermaphroditism, in Canadian polar bears is expected to come
out later this year when results of the ongoing Davis Strait
Polar Bear Survey are released.
In its 1997 landmark State of the Arctic Environment report,
the federal government confirmed the presence of pesticides
and such industrial chemicals as PCBs and heavy metals like
cadmium and lead in the northern environment.
Most of these contaminants originate in southern Canada and
other industrialized nations, and are carried to the Arctic by
wind and ocean currents. Some come from local sources such
as municipal dumps and abandoned military bases.
Though the federal government and aboriginal groups have
judged the meat from seals, walruses, caribou and polar bears
to be safe to eat, the long-term effects of exposure to such
contaminants are still unclear.
Courtney Sandau, a doctoral student with Carleton University,
is currently studying how PCBs and the pesticide chlordane
can affect testosterone levels in male bears.
Using liver samples taken from polar bears harvested in the
Resolute Bay area a few years ago, Sandau and scientist Ross
Norstrom of the Canadian Wildlife Service hope to understand
exactly how specific toxins interfere with the function of
naturally occuring hormones testosterone and thyroxine.
Contaminants affecting reproduction?
Testosterone is necessary for reproduction and thyroxine,
produced by the thryroid gland, is vital to the growth and
maintenance of healthy body tissue.
The effects of contaminants on Vitamin A will also be studied.
Contaminants that have the potential to disrupt normal
reproductive systems, are referred to as endocrine disrupting
chemicals (EDCs).
Last week, Canada's commissioner of the environment, Brian
Emmett, blasted Ottawa for failing to implement a consistent
system of monitoring for the presence and effects of toxic
substances on the environment.
In his report to Parliament, Emmett noted that there are
23,000 chemicals currently in use Canada, and he questioned
the government's ability to detect and understand the effect of
toxic substances.
Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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