Cancer in Pets, Wildlife and Fish

these are obviously environmental causes...

It’s not only humans. The beluga whales in Canada’s St. Lawrence estuary are getting cancer, while those in the less-polluted Arctic waters are not. Fish in contaminated waters have tumors, but not those in clean water. Dogs that are exposed to herbicides from chemically treated lawns have more cancers than those that are not. In her book detailing the global reach of environmental pollution, Devra Davis reported that polar bears in the Arctic have major body burdens of carcinogens, and that out of 100 of the Arctic’s largest land-based mammals is reported to be a hermaphrodite. It can’t get much clearer.

The belugas have survived in the world’s northern waters for millions of years, eating octopus, crabs and fish. Now one in four of the st. Lawrence whales is dying from cancer, mostly intestinal. They are also having trouble reproducing. When scientists examined their bodies, the autopsies revealed high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which almost certainly came from an upstream aluminum smelter.

In Washington D.C., four blocks from the White House, the Registry of Tumors in Lower Animals has almost 4,000 specimens of cancer in fish, amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates collected by the Smithsonian and the National Cancer Institute. Epidemics of liver cancer have been found in 16 species of fish in 25 different polluted freshwater and saltwater locations, while in non-polluted waters, fish with cancer are almost non-existent.’ The same tumors have been found in bottom-feeding fish in industrialized and urbanized areas along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada.

the rest...

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/cancer-in-pets-wildlife-and-fish.html

grz-

Tweet