Everyone is aware of the beautiful white whales – the beluga whales – that live in the artic and subartic waters.
The speech faculty of these animals is being studied at Tokyo University in Japan. They are so gifted in language that the researchers hope to be able to converse with them. And apparently the beluga whales are not only extremely intelligent, but also downright gregarious and sociable. They live mostly in families or small groups. And they have a distinctive communication repertoire. It goes from buzzing sounds to very high chirping tones. Earlier they were called the canary birds of the ocean because of their love of singing and their enormous repertoire of sounds.
Unfortunately, these wonderful animals are acutely threatened. A high death rate in beluga whales has been determined particularly in the huge St. Lawrence River on the east coast of Canada. They often die of so-called adenocarcinoma of the small intestine, which are malignant growths of the hormonal tissue.
It is known that when these white sea mammals are feeding they burrow extensively in the river bottom sludge, and this is highly contaminated with cancer-causing benzopyrenes and other such contaminants. In a study, 27% of the dead belugas that had been stranded and were examined had cancer. Along with the frequently occurring intestinal cancer, researchers found a strikingly high number of uterine tumors in the females.Â
Beluga whales are not the only victims of environmental pollution caused by people. Green sea turtles are often victims of fibropapillomatosis, growths that even in their benign varieties can grow so large that animals die from them. Nearly 40% of the turtles that live in polluted coastal waters are affected by this.
That animals can develop tumors because of the harmful substances produced by human civilization was verified by the lead author of the Wildlife Conservation Society, veterinarian and chief pathologist Denise McAloose.
California sea lions as well as catfish and other fish species are also affected. Dr. McAloose said that “Even mussels can get cancer.â€
The real cancer on this earth seems to be the human lack of judgment …
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