[NatureNS] Harp Seal

From: Helene Van Doninck <hvandoninck@eastlink.ca>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:24:00 -0300
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Nice find Randy, but very sad. I suspect this is the case in many more
marine mammals.

Helene

Helene Van Doninck DVM
Cobequid Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre
RR#1 Brookfield Nova Scotia Canada B0N1C0
hvandoninck@eastlink.ca
www.cwrc.net
http://cwrcblog.blogspot.com/
1-902-893-0253

CWRC 2010 Calendars now for sale, see www.cwrc.net

  -----Original Message-----
  From: naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca
[mailto:naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca]On Behalf Of Randy Lauff
  Sent: Monday, March 22, 2010 7:27 PM
  To: NatureNS
  Subject: [NatureNS] Harp Seal


  About a month and a half ago, Tom Kavanaugh and Stephen Bushell brought me
a Harp Seal that had died on a beach in Canso after having being basically
moribund for at least two days (thanks again, guys!). This was a new
addition to our collection so I decided to keep the entire skeleton. I
pulled the animal out of the freezer last Friday so my anatomy students and
I could have a good review of most of the systems this afternoon.


  We were very fortunate to have cameo appearances by parasitologist Dr.
Gwyneth Jones of SMU and Curator of Zoology, Andrew Hebda of the NS Museum
of Natural History, who both contributed to the afternoon's lesson. Gwyneth
kept taking organs from the seal as I was finished with them, and with some
of the students, extracted nematodes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nematoda)
and acanthocephalans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthocephala). One
student in particular had a great time slicing through the very long, small
intestine and found most of the parasites.

  Unlike most of the animals I work with in the lab, I am reasonably sure of
the cause of death of this seal. Prior to searching for stomach parasites, I
noticed a bulge in the junction between the stomach and intestine; there is
a sphincter there, the pyloric sphincter, which controls the release of food
from the stomach to the small intestine. The bulge seemed bigger than if it
was just the sphincter, so I was hoping for lots of worms. There were.


  And two plastic bottle caps firmly lodged in the sphincter. A 100 kg
animal, killed by 20 g of plastic clogging its digestive system.


  Randy
  _________________________________
  RF Lauff
  Way in the boonies of
  Antigonish County, NS.

--Boundary_(ID_LyJQb7ps1s5/GetFksmeTA)
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16981" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV><SPAN class=109172311-23032010><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Nice 
find Randy, but very sad. I suspect this is the case in many more marine 
mammals.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=109172311-23032010><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff 
size=2></FONT></SPAN>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=109172311-23032010><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff 
size=2>Helene</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV>&nbsp;</DIV>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>Helene Van Doninck DVM</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial 
size=2>Cobequid Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial 
size=2>RR#1 Brookfield Nova Scotia Canada B0N1C0</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial 
size=2>hvandoninck@eastlink.ca</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial 
size=2>www.cwrc.net</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial size=2><A 
href="http://cwrcblog.blogspot.com/" 
target=_blank>http://cwrcblog.blogspot.com/</A></FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial 
size=2>1-902-893-0253</FONT> </P>
<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>CWRC 2010 Calendars now for sale, see 
www.cwrc.net</FONT></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
  <DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma 
  size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> 
  naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca [mailto:naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca]<B>On 
  Behalf Of </B>Randy Lauff<BR><B>Sent:</B> Monday, March 22, 2010 7:27 
  PM<BR><B>To:</B> NatureNS<BR><B>Subject:</B> [NatureNS] Harp 
  Seal<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>About a month and a half ago, Tom Kavanaugh and 
  Stephen Bushell brought me a Harp Seal that had died on a beach in Canso after 
  having being basically moribund for at least two days (thanks again, guys!). 
  This was a new addition to our collection so I decided to keep the entire 
  skeleton. I pulled the animal out of the freezer last Friday so my anatomy 
  students and I could have a good review of most of the systems this afternoon.
  <DIV><BR></DIV>
  <DIV>We were very fortunate to have cameo appearances by parasitologist Dr. 
  Gwyneth Jones of SMU and Curator of Zoology, Andrew Hebda of the NS Museum of 
  Natural History, who both contributed to the afternoon's lesson. Gwyneth kept 
  taking organs from the seal as I was finished with them, and with some of the 
  students, extracted nematodes (<A 
  href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nematoda">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nematoda</A>) 
  and acanthocephalans (<A 
  href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthocephala">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthocephala</A>). 
  One student in particular had a great time slicing through the very long, 
  small intestine and found most of the parasites.</DIV>
  <DIV><BR>Unlike most of the animals I work with in the lab, I am reasonably 
  sure of the cause of death of this seal. Prior to searching for stomach 
  parasites, I noticed a bulge in the junction between the stomach and 
  intestine; there is a sphincter there, the pyloric sphincter, which controls 
  the release of food from the stomach to the small intestine. The bulge seemed 
  bigger than if it was just the sphincter, so I was hoping for lots of worms. 
  There were.</DIV>
  <DIV><BR></DIV>
  <DIV>And two plastic bottle caps firmly lodged in the sphincter. A 100 kg 
  animal, killed by 20 g of plastic clogging its digestive system.</DIV>
  <DIV><BR></DIV>
  <DIV>Randy<BR>_________________________________<BR>RF Lauff<BR>Way in the 
  boonies of<BR>Antigonish County, NS.<BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>

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