Sea lions on the U.S. west coast are having trouble hunting for food because of a neurotoxin that causes them to lose their way while doing so.
According to The Washington Post, researchers estimate the amount of stranded sea lions has increased 10 times the average over the past year through May 2015. In their study, published in the journal Science, the researchers indicated a neurotoxin from marine algae is exacerbating the animals' hunting problems.
"In this study, we were able to correlate the extent of hippocampal damage to specific behavioral impairments relevant to the animals' survival in the wild," study lead author Peter Cook, then a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in a press release.
When sea lions show up stranded, the researchers noted the animals are most often confused and hungry. The neurotoxin apparently causes them to lose their bearings while hunting for food that is already in short supply.
Known as domoic acid, the toxin is naturally occurring and comes from marine algae when the surrounding water warms from an increasing global temperature.
"One thing that had been known and fairly well demonstrated is that DA leads to fairly reliable neurologic conditions," Cook told The Post. "It hadn't really been studied in marine mammals.
"People didn't see it as a large-scale ecological concern."
