Monitoring of the sea (Tonhe) Pollution with the use of biological samples from the stranded cetaceans and crab

There have been few reports on the survey of pathological findings of cetaceans stranded on the coast of Japan. This is partly because of lack of the procedures and/or network of systemic sampling of fresh tissues for the pathological study of stranded marine mammals. In contrast, there are a numbers of reports on the cause of illness and death in wild, free-living cetaceans examined in other countries; the commonest cause of death was parasitic and bacterial pneumonia except for entanglement in fishing gear. Anthracosis, lung and hilar lymph nodes polluted by suspended particulate matter in the air, has been recently found in some cetaceans stranded on the coast of Japan. In addition to the data from the chemical analysis of tissues, scientific data obtained from pathological study of stranded marine mammals would be also one of the useful base for the assessment of global environment. Usefulness of metallothionein in the hepatopancreas of crabs as a biomarker of marine pollution monitoring was also discussed in this study.