Juan Fernández fur seals are so poorly understood that they were considered extinct for nearly a century before a remnant population which had managed to evade generations of hunters was rediscovered in the 1960s.
Their mysterious nature owes a lot to their seclusion on an archipelago of the same name 600km off the Chilean coast. These remote islands are situated in a protected national park – the last place you might expect to find animals exposed to high levels of pollution. But samples I collected and analysed with colleagues tell us something different.
Our most recent study analysed fur seal poo and found concentrations of cadmium and mercury that were among the highest reported for any mammal worldwide. This species is ingesting exceptionally high concentrations of these toxic heavy metals through its diet, but how they enter the food chain proved to be more complicated than we anticipated.
By studying these marine mammals, scientists can discover how polluted the wider environment is. Better yet, we may learn a trick or two from them on surviving amid pollution.
Fur seals on a remote island chain are exposed to huge amounts of toxic heavy metals – yet somehow, they're healthy
Their mysterious nature owes a lot to their seclusion on an archipelago of the same name 600km off the Chilean coast. These remote islands are situated in a protected national park – the last place you might expect to find animals exposed to high levels of pollution. But samples I collected and analysed with colleagues tell us something different.
Our most recent study analysed fur seal poo and found concentrations of cadmium and mercury that were among the highest reported for any mammal worldwide. This species is ingesting exceptionally high concentrations of these toxic heavy metals through its diet, but how they enter the food chain proved to be more complicated than we anticipated.
By studying these marine mammals, scientists can discover how polluted the wider environment is. Better yet, we may learn a trick or two from them on surviving amid pollution.
Fur seals on a remote island chain are exposed to huge amounts of toxic heavy metals – yet somehow, they're healthy