| Abstrakt: |
The article provides information on the causes of death among sea otters in Augustine, Alaska. The author and his friends discovered a couple of skulls of sea otters, as well as the marine mammal's carcasses on a mile-long stretch of beach. As a naturalist, the author electronically-mailed to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) office and sought some answers to their bizarre discoveries. Marine mammal biologist Angela Doroff answered the mail and explained that the researchers connected the bacterium Streptococcus infantarius to the larger die-off of the sea otters. As a result, the case prompted the FWS to declare an Unusual Mortality Event or UME. |
