Scientists find that Puget Sound orcas are spraying bacteria, good and bad, from their blowholes which is providing scientists new insights into this population. Some of the bacteria found in the samples could contain information into what is affecting the Puget Sound orcas.
After four years of scientists collecting samples, they have discovered an array of bacteria and fungi in the distinct population of southern killer whales, the Puget Sound Orcas, from the Northeast Pacific Ocean.
Scientists would follow the whales and wait for them to surface to exhale, so they could extend a 25-foot long pole with petri dishes attached. They place pole above the orcas’ blowhole to capture the droplets of their spray.
Within the samples there were fungi and bacteria found from the orcas, some good. Then, there is the bad bacteria that is drug resistance such as salmonella and staphylococcus aureus.
Some of the bad bacteria which can cause disease were resistant to the antibiotics used for humans and animals. This suggests that human waste is contaminating the marine environment in the case of the orcas.
It is still unknown to scientists whether the bacteria are causing any harm to the orcas. However, according to Stephen Raverty, the leading author of the study, the bacteria found could be normal or could be a way of making orcas sick when it becomes immune-suppressed.
If orcas have a weak immune response, they are more vulnerable to having bacteria that will result in respiratory disease. Scientists have already discovered in orcas’ death that respiratory disease was a factor to those animals. With 40 percent having an infection in the lungs and some which were strong enough to contribute to their deaths.
Besides finding bacteria resistant to antibiotics in the orcas, they could also be found in seawater. When the samples are taken from the orcas’ exhale part of the sea layer gets mixed in.
Orcas swim through waterways that urbanized and encounter environmental stressors caused by humans which could include human waste to the runoffs from agriculture.
This study finding the bacteria in orcas’ exhale is the first to snapshot the pathogen burden they face as an endangered population which they were listed as in 2005, now they are number 78. This study can also help scientists track the changes and compare the respiratory conditions, over time.
