{"id":266750,"date":"2025-11-07T01:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T01:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/266750\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T01:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T01:37:10","slug":"forever-chemicals-found-in-b-c-sea-otters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/266750\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Forever\u2019 chemicals found in B.C. sea otters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at UBC say they have found sea otters that test positive for PFAS, also known as forever chemicals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re called forever chemicals because they are really, really stable in the environment,\u201d Dana Price, researcher at UBC, told CityNews.<\/p>\n<p>These human-made chemicals are found in many common household products and have been linked to serious health issues in humans and now sea otters in B.C.<\/p>\n<p>The testing involved analyzing liver and skeletal muscle samples from 11 dead sea otters.<\/p>\n<p>Price says the results were unfortunate.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Angelina-Story-2-1024x576.png\" alt=\"Dana Price\" class=\"wp-image-4348742\"  \/>Dana Price (CityNews Image)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPFAS are present in all the sea otters that we looked at, and that\u2019s including one that had passed just after being born.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The research also found that concentrations were three times higher on average in the otters that were found near major cities and shipping routes around coastal B.C., such as Victoria and Tofino.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur use of their environment or use of their resources they rely on can affect them very, very directly,\u201d explained Dr. Martin Haulena, Director of animal health at the Vancouver Aquarium.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Angelina-Story-3-1024x576.png\" alt=\"Dr. Martin Haulena \" class=\"wp-image-4348744\"  \/>Dr. Martin Haulena (CityNews Image)<\/p>\n<p>The research team says government regulation of manufacturing is key to preventing PFAS spread.<\/p>\n<p>But we can all do our part in preventing forever chemicals from reaching our waters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we can do to make a difference for sea otters, and ourselves, is be informed consumers,\u201d said Price.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are a lot of brands that have gone above and beyond the regulations, so seeking out brands like that that have made those commitments is probably a good thing that the everyday person can do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA healthy sea otter population is a healthy reflection of a healthy ecosystem,\u201d Haulena told CityNews.<\/p>\n<p>The point of the research is to find a baseline, the level of PFAS contamination now.<\/p>\n<p>Then, future research will show whether things are improving or getting worse for the long-term health of sea otters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers at UBC say they have found sea otters that test positive for PFAS, also known as forever&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-266750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}