Seals Hit By Killer Virus

Sept. 27, 2002
By Geraint Smith, Evening Standard Science Correspondent

More than half the English population of seals is believed to have been wiped out by a horrific virus, scientists said today.

The flu-like infection has killed just over 1,600 seals of the 3,000 near The Wash in East Anglia - where the bulk of England's seals live - since spreading from Scandinavia in August.

And now the Zoological Society of London has confirmed the virus's presence in Essex, where 10 seals have been found dead since 4 September.

A post-mortem on one animal confirmed it died from phocine distemper virus (PDV), a bug related to canine distemper. Although not dangerous to humans, it is highly infectious and lethal to seals, and will also kill unvaccinated dogs.

The spread of the disease cannot be stopped, and the disease cannot be treated.

The RSPCA Animal Hospital at East Winch in Norfolk has been taking in four infected seals a day to try to save them. Out of 130 seals admitted, only 33 are still alive.

"At the beginning, the survival rate was about 50 per cent, but that has really gone down and is now very low," said a spokeswoman. " People are working to save them 24 hours a day, and it is hard watching them die."

RSPCA inspector Mark Thompson said visiting beaches in East Anglia now was a deeply depressing experience: "There are dead or dying seals on every beach from Hunstanton to Lowestoft. There may be some fit animals around, but I haven't seen any.

"They do not normally come onto beaches frequented by humans, but they are doing so now. Those that are still alive are disorientated and very unwell. They will just lie there, breathing heavily, with mucus streaming from their eyes and nose."

Of the 70 post-mortems conducted at the Zoological Society in Regent's Park, 31 - nearly half - have tested positive for the virus. Results have yet to be returned from another 24 post-mortems.

The disease has spread swiftly across northern Europe. The current epidemic was first identified in May this year on the island of Anholt in the Kattegat, the stretch of water between Denmark and Sweden.

Since then it has spread along the Dutch and German coasts, killing nearly 16,000 common seals along mainland Europe. It reached Lincolnshire and East Anglia on 13 August. In the week to 24 September alone, 308 dead seals have been reported around the UK, making a total of 1,794 since the beginning of the outbreak.

The majority of these (1,603) have been from The Wash, which was thought to be home to slightly more than 3,000 animals. There have been no positive results from Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales, although results of more tests are pending.

The Zoological Society is appealing for volunteers to walk kilometre-long stretches of coastline looking for dead seals to obtain a more accurate estimate of the casualty rate, the extent to which the virus has spread, and which seal colonies are most severely affected.

Wildlife pathologist, Paul Jepson, co-ordinator of the research team at the society's Institute of Zoology, said: "We have been collating results from all over the country and have found the information invaluable. We need more volunteers.

"We understand the effects of PDV on seals. However, the current research will provide us with more information."

In 1988, the disease killed 18,000 seals in Europe, devastating the populations around The Wash, and the Moray Firth in Scotland. Although those animals that survived the last epidemic will have gained some resistance, tests suggest that is less than 10 per cent of the population around the UK.

A report for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs earlier this year predicted the epidemic, but said that no usable commercial vaccine existed for the disease, and even if there were one, it would not be practicable to administer it.

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