Mass die-offs in marine mammals are accelerating, and climate change will only make it worse
There have been many cases in the past several decades where large numbers of marine mammals have perished in infectious disease outbreaks—and climate change is likely to make these events even more frequent. (Pixabay/)In 2002, several thousand ailing harbor seals became stranded along the Dutch coast. The seals were suffering from a disease called phocine distemper virus, which is related to the canine distemper virus that infects domestic dogs. The epidemic ultimately killed 30,000 seals in the waters around northern Europe over a period of about seven months.While mass die-offs on this scale are unusual, there have been many cases in the past several decades where large numbers of marine mammals have perished in infectious disease outbreaks—and climate change is likely to make these events even more frequent, scientists reported on June 18 in the journal Global Change Biology.The researchers examined data collected over the past six decades to determine...