Marine Mammals Suffer Human Diseases

When one of these species gets sick or dies from something in the water, it is often a warning to humans of disease to come.

Toxoplasma gondii, which causes the disease toxoplasmosis in humans, has been found in 52 percent of dead otters and 37 percent of the living.
combination of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and herpes virus similar to the one that infects humans has led to an increase in cancer.

Over the past 15 years, 17 percent of dead and stranded sea lions have been diagnosed with urogenital cancer, striking females in the cervix and males in the penis and prostate.

The cancer spreads to other organ systems in sea lions the same as in humans.