• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Fossi; Pacific; harbor seal; Phoca vitulina
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.502.3987; http://www.pacificmmc.org/pdf/Research-contaminants.pdf

ivo ra er B, su ch c ed i 200 ns o had atio nor 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. s have ipheny), whic chron ased uthern ge amo an off et al., 2004; Fossi et al., 2003). The accumulation of these contam-inants also makes pinnipeds highly susceptible to a variety of can-cers, and the impairment of immune, reproductive, developmental, and endocrine systems (de Swart et al., 1996). Three species of pinnipeds commonly inhabit SCB waters: the California sea lion (CA sea lion; Zalophus californianus californianus), the Pacific harbor seal (Phoca vitulina richardii), and the northern to prey mainly on cephalopods along with a few fish and elasmo-branch species (Condit and Le Boeuf, 1984). Despite the highly publicized dumping of DDT off the PVS from the late 1940s to its subsequent agricultural ban in 1972, relatively few studies have been conducted on the levels of DDT and PCBs in the pinnipeds specifically residing and feeding in the SCB where the highest dumping in CA occurred, even though many papers have been published on contaminants in pinnipeds found in other