Helgoland and Sylt are important centers of tourism in the North Sea. Harbor and grey seals are one reason for the attraction of these islands. However, little is known about these local seal groups. The present postmortem health and pollution study describes a multiparameter investigation of five ill harbor seals which were shot for animal welfare reasons. Firstly, results of pathology and blood investigations support the bad prognosis of survival made in the field. Signs of inflammation in organs, malnutrition, a high-stress level, and reduced thyroid activity were found. Secondly, metal and organic contaminants were investigated. Metal pollutants in blood, liver, muscle, and kidney tissue were not elevated. Lead and mercury concentrations showed a decreased level compared to former studies. Additionally, interesting insights were found for several organic contaminants in comparison with other studies. The Helgoland seals may be influenced by the contaminants of the Elbe plume. 1. Introduction The ongoing and increasing use of the North Sea and its unique Wadden Sea areas for fishing, offshore wind parks, and as dumping site for dredged material containing various pollutants represents the main anthropogenic threat to this ecosystem. Besides determining contamination levels of selected environmental compartments such as sediments or the related water column, measuring body burdens of marine animals remains a widely established environmental assessment strategy [1–7]. In this context, marine mammals such as harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) are accepted indicators, in particular for medium and long-term ecosystem changes, due to their long lifespan and their role as top predators within the marine food web [8]. Correlations between bioaccumulation of environmental contaminants in the tissues of marine mammals and immunosuppressive effects enhancing the animals’ vulnerability to infectious diseases or pathogens have been described [9–11]. The tissue of seals found dead occasionally along the Wadden Sea coast line represents an important sample material which could be used for pathological investigations and for estimating contaminant body burdens in monitoring programs. However, to describe complex parameters such as the individual health status of marine mammals, an informative set of investigations has to be performed. Recently, we described a study including metals, organic contaminants, selected marker proteins as well as a number of immunological and clinical chemistry parameters to assess the health status of individual marine mammals based on blood
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