I’m meeting Wright at the Environmental Protection Agency in Anchorage. He leads me into his lab—the only facility in Alaska that is state-licensed to test shellfish for human consumption. Most analyzes are used for quality assurance in industrial oyster and king mussel production. We meet an assistant who has given three mice a porridge made from cooked oyster meat and is now waiting to see if the animals die from it. Sometimes the rodents die within seconds, but this time they survive.
Seldovia residents also cooperate with other experienced professionals. During one of the network’s monthly teleconferences, Kathi Lefebvre, a biologist and expert on toxic algal blooms who works for NOAA, speaks out. Lefebvre presents a multi-year research study examining how toxins spread through the Arctic food chain. When the meeting is over, Opheim emails her to ask if he can send her samples for analysis.
Lefebvre immediately shows interest. She suggests that Opheim catch a few dozen herring and send them to her so she can investigate the cause of a recent mass extinction of these fish. Opheim hires his nephew Payton, which, empowered by his self-sufficiency license, does immediately. Payton packs the herring he catches into resealable plastic bags, freezes them in his freezer and ships them to Lefebvre – a complicated undertaking that requires the frozen cargo to change planes and courier several times. The herrings are still in Lefebvre’s freezer today because it was not possible to examine them promptly due to the corona restrictions. As soon as the opportunity arises, the biologist will puree the fish, centrifuge the meat pulp and test the resulting body fluid for toxins.
As early as 1998, Lefebvre became aware of the problem of toxic algal blooms. She realized there was a link between the deaths of hundreds of California sea lions and diatoms of the genus Pseudo-nitzschiathat secrete domoic acid. The toxic substance, also known as amnesic shellfish poison (ASP), causes nausea, cramps, diarrhea, difficulty breathing, memory loss and brain damage. In severe cases, their ingestion leads to death. Similar to the PSP toxins mentioned earlier, this poison is tasteless and odorless and cannot be neutralized by cooking contaminated meat.
Teamwork over huge distances
Pseudo-nitzschia Has been documented to occur in the waters around Seldovia, but has not flowered there – until now. Lefebvre is concerned about the water temperatures that are rising as a result of climate change. “The environment is changing so drastically that the traditional indigenous knowledge that has been passed on for five millennia cannot prepare people for the upheaval,” she says. Pletnikoff takes the same view, emphasizing that indigenous people need to expand their knowledge in order to survive.
The Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network is a promising initiative, says Lefebvre – an inspiring example of the benefits of having globally connected experts work together with people in remote communities to tackle environmental problems together. What the indigenous people learn, for example about the consequences of climate change, they pass on to their tribe members and explain to them how self-sufficient people should behave in the face of the rapid ecological upheaval. The feeling of helping over long distances to protect people in remote regions is very motivating, says Lefebvre.
Indigenous initiatives are now taking off across Alaska, modeled on the Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Network. In 2016, the southern Sitka Tribe of Alaska launched its own program to screen shellfish for toxin exposure. So-called ELISA tests are used for this purpose, which detect proteins (e.g. toxins) in a targeted manner with the help of antibodies that are applied to a carrier medium. Over a period of around five years, 1700 mollusc samples were analyzed as part of this programme. It was shown that the toxin content of mussels, cockles and sand mussels more and more often exceeds the safe limit values. The tribal association has therefore repeatedly warned against eating mussels that you have collected yourself.
On the island of Kodiak, southwest of Seldovia, the Kodiak Area Native Association, a non-profit organization that supports indigenous people, operates a free, self-sufficient shellfish testing program. It reimburses the expense of shipping samples to the Sitka Tribe of Alaska for testing and provides information and resources to reduce the risks of toxic algal blooms.
In 2021, the Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute in the city of Seward, southern Alaska, which represents seven indigenous tribes, purchased an ELISA machine to detect PSP and ASF toxins. The staff hope to be able to test both water and clam meat samples within a week, building the most comprehensive monitoring program in Alaska. They have also created an online portal where residents from across the state can submit their sample information using an online form.
Despite all these initiatives, a solution to the problem is a long way off. Wright says the Sitka Tribe and Alutiiq Pride surveillance is a good start, but he worries about the reliability of the measurements. ELISA tests are not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to monitor shellfish intended for human consumption. Because the algae toxins that accumulate in them are a mixture of hundreds of different chemicals, and some of them could not be detected with ELISA. US researchers have tried for years to develop a wearable device for detecting PSP toxins, but failed due to the complex variety of these substances. Here’s why the archaic mouse test – which sees rodents dying from contaminated meat – is still used.
According to Wright, only mouse tests or expensive molecular analyzes can provide a definitive statement as to whether a sampled shellfish is safe to eat. Both are unlikely to be used in indigenous test facilities in the foreseeable future: animal testing is strictly regulated, and molecular analyzes require expensive laboratory equipment and specially trained personnel.
“We’ve been to the moon and on our way to Mars, but we still have to infuse mice with poison to test clam meat?”(Jeff Hetrick, Director at Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute)
Jeff Hetrick, director at the Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute, believes there simply isn’t enough money and goodwill on the part of the government to get the problem under control. He doesn’t think it’s the technical complexity that stands in the way of a solution. “We’ve been to the moon and on our way to Mars,” he asks, “but we still have to infuse mice with poison to test clam meat?”
Meanwhile, the indigenous networks continue their work. In late summer 2021, shortly after I left Seldovia on the plane, Opheim received a call. He is told that a kittiwake is dying on the beach. When he arrives at the spot described, the seagull is almost dead; shortly afterwards she dies. Opheim freezes them and emails Wright to ask if he can test the bird for algae toxins. The answer is yes.
But how did the dead animal end up in Wright’s lab, 120 miles away? This is where Kiliii Yüyan, the Indigenous Chinese-American photographer who shot the images accompanying this article, steps in. He picks up the bird carcass and some mussels four weeks later as he drives from Seldovia to Anchorage. After handing them over to Wright, he takes them to his lab along with the intestines of a coho salmon.
hope for improvement
Opheim hopes that if indigenous people and scientists can work together to deal with the problem of toxic algal blooms on Alaska’s endless coasts, then the danger could be contained anywhere in the world. From his point of view, what self-sufficient people need most is data that they trust, that they have access to and that will help them to secure their future food supply. If more federal and state funds were available to pay for equipment and personnel, he would set up a tribal laboratory so that the indigenous people could analyze their samples on a short-distance basis.
In the fall of 2021, the results from Wright’s lab will arrive in Seldovia. The dead kittiwake and the mussels were only slightly contaminated with toxins – the innards of the coho salmon, on the other hand, were heavily contaminated. An e-mail that Wright received from the Russian Academy of Sciences at about the same time fits in with this. In it, a researcher describes how she and her team have only ever found a few hundred toxic algae per liter of seawater during investigations near Vladivostok over the past 20 years. Recently, however, there were a staggering 200,000 Alexandrium catenella-Specimens per liter have been detectable. The algae on the affected stretch of coast multiplied massively, according to the mail. The researcher asked whether Wright was willing to collaborate scientifically. It is becoming increasingly clear that the ecological changes facing the region can only be mastered together.