A one-year-old sea otter at the Seattle Aquarium is the first of her kind to be diagnosed with asthma.
Advertisement
“We attempt to make it as enjoyable as potential”, Perry stated a information launch. “Anytime you’re training a medical behavior, you want to make it nice and positive”, Perry told local TV station King-5.
Now, Mishka is learning to use an inhaler that’s filled with the exact medication given to humans. Sea otters went extinct in Washington and 40 years ago, Alaskan sea otters were brought south and reintroduced to the coast. The animals became protected in 1911, but it was too late.
Numerous 59 otters introduced soon died and scientists now believe that all the wild otters alive in the state today may be descended from just 10 animals.
Experts are unsure exactly why Mishka developed the condition, but it may have something to do with a lack of genetic diversity in the species, making it more hard for their immune systems to combat the disease.
Asthma is rare in animals, though there have been cases where dogs, cats, and horses develop the condition.
In an interview with King-5, Dr. Peter Rabinowitz of the University of Washington said that health problems manifesting in the animal kingdom are reflections of the problems in the environment.
Advertisement
He told King-5: “More and more there starts to be this concept of what we’re calling “One Health”, which really is that there’s a connection between the health of people and the health other species”.
