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ABC News
27-07-2025
- Health
- ABC News
As South Australia deals with its algal bloom, California is dealing with another
A dead sea lion is discovered on one end of the coast, and not far away an entire pod of long-beaked common dolphins lay stranded. It is becoming a familiar scene for those living along the coast of Southern California. And much like in South Australia, where thousands of dead sea creatures have washed ashore since March, a harmful algal bloom is to blame. Warning: This story contains content that some readers may find distressing. In California, this is the fourth consecutive year of death and destruction along the coastline. There have been scores of marine mammals and sea birds injured and killed, with US rescuers dealing with "by far historically the largest mass stranding event" relating to algal blooms. In South Australia, the Karenia mikimotoi bloom, kills fish and other sea creatures by impacting their gills, causing them to drown. In the US, authorities have been dealing with different types of algae, including one that produces domoic acid which can cause mammals like sea lions to experience seizures, behave aggressively or die. The Pacific Marine Mammal Center (PMMC) said the harmful algal bloom on the Southern California coast had significantly impacted sea lion and common dolphin populations and had killed two humpback whales and a minke whale. "In 2025, we've experienced the worst domoic acid algae bloom that we've ever experienced in Southern California history," Alissa Deming, PMMC vice president of Conservation, Medicine and Science told ABC News. Dr Deming said the PMMC hospital had taken in hundreds of sick mammals, which had been "physically demanding and very emotionally taxing" on staff and volunteers trying to help while protecting the public from aggressive animals. "A number of the sea lions were also pregnant, and that resulted in reproductive losses of over 85 fetuses born and lost in our hospital as a result of this bloom," she said. The veterinarian said there were likely similar drivers for its bloom to the one happening in South Australia including increasing marine temperatures and more nutrients from cold water upwelling. "By combining the warm sea surface temperatures with increased nutrients, that has resulted in us having a bloom event every year since 2022, with them seemingly becoming larger, longer lasting and covering a lot larger geographic region," Dr Deming said. Investigations are underway if the destructive Los Angeles wildfires in January and the associated run-off have contributed to the bloom. The US National Office for Harmful Algal Blooms said a conservative estimated cost of harmful algal blooms for the the US was about $50 million, but experts say expenses are hard to quantify. A 2024 study estimated losses to tourism-related businesses during the 2018 Florida red tide bloom at $US2.7 billion. Dr Deming said the US government agencies continued to have monitoring and management practices in place to support the commercial seafood industry. "Being able to have good federal and state agencies that can do surveillance to test to ensure seafood is safe for the public, as well as trying to come up with preventative measures or best management practices to prevent blooms, … are really high priority items," she said. "We're happy we have some of those systems in place, but there's absolutely room for improvement I think all around the world to help prevent the conditions that support these really long lasting and devastating blooms." Other algal blooms have also wreaked havoc in other parts of the world. An algae surge choked to death an estimated 40,000 tonnes of salmon in Chile in 2016 while hundreds of elephant deaths in Botswana in 2020 were linked to cyanobacteria, often called blue-green algae in Australia. The scale of each harmful algal bloom event seems to be increasing, professor Gretta Pecl from the University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies told the ABC. "If there isn't something done to mitigate, to reduce climate emissions, warming will continue and these kinds of events will be more and more likely," she said. US research biologist at NOAA Fisheries Kathi Lefebvre, who has been studying harmful algal blooms for 25 years, said the blooms were getting worse and reaching areas "where we used to not have problems". "It is turning out to be a major impact of climate change." Authorities in South Australia have linked South Australia's algal bloom to climate change, and state and federal governments have pledged a collective $28 million for a suite of measures to tackle the algal bloom, including more funding for testing. Dr Lefebvre said authorities needed to take action now to mitigate the effects of future blooms. "What's going to happen if these blooms are going to be continuing is that there's going to need to be ways to test for toxins … to protect human health," Dr Lefebvre said. "The more information we have, the better decisions we can make.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
‘Horrific' Scene On The California Coast: Largest Algae Bloom On Record Is Killing Thousands Of Marine Animals
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways Toxic algae blooms along the California coast have been a problem off and on for the past four years, but what's been happening in recent months is unprecedented. This is now one of the largest harmful algae blooms ever recorded in this region and has led to thousands of marine animals and birds becoming sick or dying in recent months. This includes at least two whale species, dolphins, birds and the biggest numbers have been from sea lions. 'It's horrific,' Glenn Gray, CEO of the Pacific Marine Mammal Center (PMMC) told 'The number of dead dolphins we've gotten this year is just off the charts. We're all dealing with numbers within a two-month period of time that would normally represent the number of responses we would make in a year. It's been the worst that's on record in terms of how it's affecting the animals and the different species of animals.' The toxin is called domoic acid poisoning, which is a neurotoxin produced by an algae called Pseudo-nitzschia. It attacks the nervous system of marine life, either killing them, or making them appear disoriented, according to scientists at the PMMC. 'It's like having a seizure,' explained Gray. 'I compare it to a pet having a seizure. It's very similar and heart-wrenching because the sea lions are kind and gentle. They're playing with each other and then the next moment, they're seizing.' Gray explains that if these sea lions seize for more than 30 seconds, there's a good chance they will suffer irreversible damage to their brain. He says they can become unbalanced, and stay very unpredictable and potentially dangerous to others. What's happening is that the domoic acid is collecting in the smaller fish species that the larger animals are feeding on. Scientists have revealed that this toxin is spreading throughout the food web, which is impacting more and more species, including whales. 'Each of these whale deaths is heartbreaking, and also deeply telling,' said Keith Matassa, CEO and Founder of the Ocean Animal Response & Research Alliance (OARRA). 'Whales are sentinels of ocean health, and their suffering signals a larger ecological imbalance driven by intensifying harmful algal blooms. These events are no longer isolated, they're increasing in scope, scale, frequency, and severity.' Recent California Wildfires Possibly Played A Role While no official scientific studies have been completed yet, the recent wildfires, including the Palisades Fire, could be contributing to the toxins. The fire burned more than 23,000 acres and destroyed nearly 7,000 structures. Scientists are currently investigating whether the fire retardant used to fight the fires could be contributing to the magnitude of this algae bloom. 'The toxic algae is essentially fed by pollution,' explained Gray. 'If you look at the fire retardant, the pink substance that was dumped, the two active ingredients of that are water and fertilizer.' Shortly after the fires, atmospheric river conditions brought a lot of rain, and scientists are concerned that all the nutrient fertilizer that ran off into the ocean is a contributing factor. They are also looking into what negative contributions the runoff of charred debris may have had as well. 'We're running from daylight to sunset, from one end of the county to the other," said Gray. 'It's just been crazy with respect to the number of animals we have in our hospital. Our staff and our volunteers are putting in 14-18 hour days.' What To Do If You Encounter A Sick Marine Animal Algae blooms have been more frequent and more severe in the last few decades, because of warmer ocean temperatures being driven by climate change. But added pollutants only exacerbate the situation. And while marine life is at the mercy of Mother Nature as to when this bloom will weaken, scientists worry about the impacts of this dragging out much longer. 'I'm worried that if this continues all the way through June as the last one did, there's just gonna be a lot more fatalities,' said Gray. NOAA fisheries and their network rely on the public as its eyes and ears, urging beachgoers and others to report stranded animals to the Network hotline at 866-767-6114. The PMMC says beachgoers should also make sure to stay clear of stranded animals and keep their pets away from marine mammals. These animals can bite and may carry diseases that may be harmful to humans and pets. Jennifer Gray is a weather and climate writer for She has been covering some of the world's biggest weather and climate stories for the last two decades.
