Trump administration cuts to NOAA threaten efforts to save sea lions from toxic plankton

Los Angeles Times

26-03-2025

Redondo Beach — The Trump administration's targeting of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will jeopardize efforts to save sea lions, dolphins, sea birds and other wildlife stricken by poisons lurking offshore, say marine scientists, public health officials and animal rescuers.
Federal research and funding plays a crucial role in enabling scientists to monitor ocean conditions — including the domoic acid outbreak that is now killing hundreds of marine mammals up and down the California coast.
The data provided by NOAA, and other federally supported efforts, help scientists figure out when and how these outbreaks happen; provide help and aid to the sickened animals that are seizing and convulsing on area beaches; and test and examine their bodies once they have died to see if it was the toxin that killed them, and how it killed them.
State and local public health officials also use the data gathered by NOAA and its funded partners to determine algal outbreaks that could affect human health — such as a current advisory urging people to avoid consuming oysters, mussels and clams off the Santa Barbara coast for another toxin, paralytic shellfish poisoning.
'Everything we do — all that data we collect — it couldn't be done without the federal government,' said Clarissa Anderson, the director of the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. 'We wouldn't have any of that information without them.'
NOAA didn't respond to a request for comment. A NOAA spokesperson previously said the agency 'remains dedicated to its mission, providing timely information, research and resources that serve the American public.'
Although how much of the agency's budget will be slashed, and how many researchers will be axed, is still not clear. Researchers that work with the agency have been told to expect at least a 20% reduction in the agency's workforce and a 30% reduction in the budget.
The domoic acid outbreak currently hitting the Southern and Central coast of California, from San Diego to Monterey, has led to hundreds of animals washing up on the shore dead. Sea lions and dolphins have been observed rigid with seizures, acting dazed and confused. Many of the sea lions show aggression, or swivel their heads and necks in wild and disorienting circles.
A Times reporter this week witnessed a sea lion pulling itself out of the surf and onto the beach just south of the Hermosa Beach pier.
Its head bobbed up and down and side to side, its snub nose tracing arcs in the morning sky. Over and over, its head arched up as if to take in the sun, and then flopped backward as if its bones had liquified.
A few feet from the animal, a dead western grebe — a sea bird — lay motionless in the sand, its head resting on a gnarl of wood. Just a few yards away, another bird, possibly another grebe, its belly and head obscured by the sand, also lay still. Near it lay the body of a dead sea lion.
The animals may have been poisoned by ingesting fish contaminated by domoic acid, a toxin released by the common coastal phytoplankton Pseudo-nitzschia. The fish eat the toxic plankton, and the marine mammals and birds eat the poisonous fish, say experts.
Scientists know there's a domoic acid event happening offshore because they have been able to detect blooms of Pseudo-nitzschia via NOAA and National Aeronautic and Space Agency satellites, and have sampled the plankton directly through technology, tests and protocols designed or funded by NOAA.
They use robotic gliders that can go far offshore and sample below the water's surface. They also use shore stations up and down the coast, where they can monitor whats happening right offshore. And they use robotic microscopes that can sample and see the plankton, algae and other microscopic creatures spinning, floating and swimming in the water column (California has the largest network of these 'flow cytobots,' said Anderson).
They also piggyback on NOAA research vessels — or the vessels of NOAA research partners, such as Los Angeles Waterkeeper — or coordinate with NOAA scientists who can collect and test samples, to get even further out to sea.
And as the frequency and severity of these events increase, the need for these services also grows.
In the last four years, at least four domoic acid events have occurred along the Central and Southern California coasts. In the past, such events were sporadic, occurring once every four or five years. The most publicly obvious impacts are the animals on the beaches, but they affect coastal shellfish farms and other aquaculture entities too.
Daniele Bianchi, an assistant professor in UCLA's Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, has been studying what causes this normally benign plankton species to start secreting lethal toxins.
Bianchi said he and the graduate students in his laboratory — many of whom get funding from NOAA — still don't understand all the factors. But their work shows a correlation between increased levels of nitrogen in the water (a byproduct of storm and wastewater runoff) and domoic acid production.
'Understanding to what extent these might become more frequent in the future, or is there anything that we can do to better manage coastal waters? These are the questions that NOAA was supporting,' said Bianchi.
Researchers have also learned that the plankton blooms — both poisonous and benign — tend to coincide with upwelling events, when deep, cold water is churned up toward the surface, providing an infusion of nutrients and energy to the plants, algae and invertebrates hanging around in the water column.
When these upwelling events occur and plankton and algae start appearing in large numbers, other creatures — such as anchovies and sardines — move in to feed, which then brings the sea lions, sea birds and dolphins.
And as those animals feed and become sick, such as the sea lion observed on Hermosa Beach, a network of stranding organizations rush in to care for the sick and dying animals.
These organizations, which include the Sausalito-based Marine Mammal Center, and the Santa Barbara-based Channel Islands Marine and Wildlife Institute, are mostly funded by foundations and private donations, but many also receive some federal funding. And as these events become more frequent and increase in severity, so too do these organizations' financial needs.
For instance, Sam Dover, the director of the Channel Islands rescue organization, said that he typically buys one 40,000 pound load of frozen fish per year to feed the sickened and injured animals he and his team rescue and rehabilitate. This year? 'We already had to refill it. Oh my god. So, it's things like that.'
These organizations also rely on NOAA's scientists and researchers who are stationed up and down the Pacific coast, from San Diego to Alaska, who help the stranding network understand what's happening in the wider ocean to fish stocks, ocean temperatures, seasonal feeding sites, etc. This knowledge enables these rescue organizations to prepare for crisis events, such as domoic acid outbreaks, and coordinate their responses.
'Whether it be consulting with their scientists around what approach to use when there is an unusual presentation of an animal in waters that we're not expecting — be it a whale, often, or a seal or a sea lion — or a decision on how or whether and where to release an animal that's been in our care, or whether to place satellite tags on animals that may warrant long term monitoring,' said Jeffrey Boehm, the director of the Marine Mammal Center. 'A lot of practical decisions are made week in, week out, day in, day out.'
'So when you ask what it would look like without NOAA? You remove any one of the many vital services they provide, and it's like that child's game — that one where you start removing the pieces, and you know eventually it's going to fall,' he said.
And for the animals who die? It's NOAA scientists and laboratories that perform necropsies to determine the cause of death — Was it domoic acid poisoning? Or did they ingest a hard piece of plastic? — and what organs the toxins targeted.
The role the agency plays in the well-being of Californians, its wild ocean creatures and its economy are undersold, said Anderson.
'We all know the importance of the agency when it comes to forecasting the weather,' she said. 'But it's the same for their work in the ocean — we cannot have any future knowledge of any earth system without these kinds of data and models.'