Cancer in wild animals may be triggered or accelerated by environmental contaminants, some researchers argue
Thirty years ago, a Canadian marine biologist noticed something mysterious was happening to beluga whales in the St. Lawrence Estuary. Decades of over-hunting had decimated the population, but several years after the government put a stop to the practice, the belugas still hadn’t recovered.
Two decades and hundreds of carcasses later, he had an answer.
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"They were dying of cancer," said Daniel Martineau, now a professor of pathology at the University of Montreal.
The white whales were victims of intestinal cancers caused by industrial pollutants released into the St. Lawrence River by nearby aluminum smelters.
