Post-mortem findings in southern right whales Eubalaena australis at Península Valdés, Argentina, 2003-2012

MCALOOSE, DENISE; RAGO, M. VIRGINIA; DI MARTINO, MATÍAS; CHIRIFE, ANDREA; OLSON, SARAH H.; BELTRAMINO, LUCAS; MUSMECI, LUCIANA; POZZI, LUCIANA M.; LA SALA, LUCIANO; MOHAMED, NADIA; SALA, JUAN EMILIO; BANDIERI, LUCAS; TOMASZEWICZ, ANIA; ANDREJUK, JULIAN; SEIMON, TRACIE; SAMARTINO, LUIS E.; SIRONI, MARIANO; ROWNTREE, VICTORIA; UHART, MARCELA M.

DISEASES OF AQUATIC ORGANISMS

INTER-RESEARCH

Lugar: Oldendorf/Luhe; Año: 2016 vol. 119 p. 17 - 36

0177-5103

Between 2003 and 2012, 605 southern right whales (SRW; Eubalaena australis) werefound dead along the shores of Península Valdés (PV), Argentina. These deaths included alarminglyhigh annual losses between 2007 and 2012, a peak number of deaths (116) in 2012, and a significantnumber of deaths across years in calves-of-the-year (544 of 605 [89.9%]; average = 60.4 yr−1). Postmortemexamination and pathogen testing were performed on 212 whales; 208 (98.1%) were calvesof-the-yearand 48.0% of these were newborns or neonates. A known or probable cause of death wasestablished in only a small number (6.6%) of cases. These included ship strike in a juvenile and blunttrauma or lacerations (n = 5), pneumonia (n = 4), myocarditis (n = 2), meningitis (n = 1), or myocarditisand meningitis (n = 1) in calves. Ante-mortem gull parasitism was the most common gross finding. Itwas associated with systemic disease in a single 1−2 mo old calf. Immunohistochemical labeling for caninedistemper virus, Toxoplasma gondii and Brucella spp., and PCR for cetacean morbillivirus(CeMV), influenza A, and apicomplexan protozoa were negative on formalin-fixed, paraffinembeddedlung and brain samples from a subset of whales; PCR for Brucella spp. was positive in anewborn/neonate with pneumonia. Skin samples from whales with gull parasitism were PCR negativefor CeMV, poxvirus, and papillomavirus. This is the first long-term study to investigate and summarizenotable post-mortem findings in the PV SRW population. Consistent, significant findings within or betweenyears to explain the majority of deaths and those in high-mortality years remain to be identified.