The Nation - News from Dec. 20, 1987

Contaminated mackerel were found in the stomachs of nine whales found dead recently along Cape Cod beaches, a discovery that may help explain other mysterious marine fatalities, researchers said. “We have discovered for the first time a biological toxin that is directly responsible for the deaths” of marine mammals, marine pathologist Joseph R. Geraci told reporters. Residues of a paralytic shellfish toxin, originating in algae known as red tide, were detected in the internal organs of mackerel found in the whales’ stomachs and in the organs of fresh mackerel caught off Cape Cod. The whales washed ashore on Cape Cod in the last three weeks. “The link is more than circumstantial,” Geraci said at the New England Aquarium in Boston.