Blood chemistry in southern elephant seal mothers and pups during lactation reveals no effect of handling

• Main Authors: Engelhard, GH, Hall, AJ, Brasseur, SMJM, Reijnders, PJH
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2002
• Subjects: chemical immobilisation; clinical chemistry; health status; human disturbance; lactation; Mirounga leonina; physical restraint; pinnipedia; MIROUNGA-LEONINA; PHOCA-VITULINA; HARBOR SEALS; MACQUARIE ISLAND; REFERENCE VALUES; HEMATOLOGY; POPULATION; IMMOBILIZATION; TILETAMINE; PARAMETERS; Elephant Seal; Macquarie Island; Phoca vitulina; Southern Elephant Seal
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/11370/c67e4ea3-66ad-4261-a6eb-11e26da6c4d5; https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/c67e4ea3-66ad-4261-a6eb-11e26da6c4d5

Serum clinical chemistry parameters were examined in lactating southern elephant seal Mirounga leonina mothers and their pups from the declining Macquarie Island population. There were significant changes in serum values from 2 to 21 days postpartum in both nursing mothers (increase: inorganic phosphate; decrease: creatinine, potassium, chloride, cholesterol, total protein, albumin, globulin, aspartate aminotransferase, creatine kinase) and suckling pups (increase: inorganic phosphate, globulin, cholesterol; decrease: albumin, alkaline phosphatase, gammaglutamyl transferase; increase followed by decrease: triglycerides, iron). We found no evidence that changes were due to chronic stress effects caused by repeated chemical immobilisations (mothers) or physical restraint (pups): at late lactation, clinical chemistry values were similar for mother-pup pairs of a control group (not handled previously), moderate treatment group (previously handled twice) and high treatment group (previously handled three to four times). We were not able to detect differences in clinical chemistry values between mother-pup pairs distributed over two areas differing in the frequency of human visits. The clinical chemistry values presented here can serve as reference ranges to allow future comparison with other southern elephant seal populations to investigate factors, e.g. food limitation, suspected to be involved in population declines. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.