A BBC story claims that the carelessness of cat owners in California is killing off sea otters like this adorable little guy:

Seems reasonable enough. And this call comes from a genuine scientist:

The Californian researcher has called for owners to keep their cats indoors.

Cat faeces carrying Toxoplasma parasites wash into US waterways and then into the sea where they can infect otters, causing brain disease.

But the culprit, toxoplasma gondi, called a 'cat parasite' by the reporter, is no such thing, and the researcher's theory (presented initially as fact) doesn't seem to me to pass muster.

It seems rather like a false inference: people are commonly infected while changing kitty litter, ergo cat feces is the culprit. Clearly then the feces of cats out of doors is flowing to the sea and infecting otters.

But this, from the reearcher, tipped me off:

"But by keeping the cats indoors, we reduce the chance they're going to get infected by eating infected birds or rodents, and the chance they are going to shed their faeces outdoors."

Eating infected birds or rodents? I thought it was a 'cat parasite,' or thatcats were necessarily the cause. What birds or rodents might be carrying toxoplasma gondi?

As it happens, probably all of them:

Toxoplasmosis is a common disease found in birds and mammals across North America. The infection is caused by a parasite called toxoplasma gondi and affects 10 to 20 out of every 100 people in North America by the time they are adults.

At this point I'm beginning to wonder if sea birds--let's say gulls--might be infected. And I wonder too whether otters eat gulls. And don't you think gulls might be more populus where there are people and a steady supply of food? Maybe in populated areas, like the urban centers in California mentioned in the BBC article?

That sounds more logical than this:

Dr Conrad has found that otters are more often infected with the single-celled parasite Toxoplasma gondii near urban centres with heavy water outflow from the land.

"What appears to be happening is that cats deposit their faeces - with the parasite - on land. When rainfall comes it washes that into waterways and the fresh water takes it into the ocean."

Once the parasite reaches the sea, it may be concentrated in mussels, oysters and clams, a major source of food for some otters.

"For the sea otters we don't exactly know how it gets in," said Dr Conrad, "but it must be through ingestion.

"Because so many are dying, we are looking for things that concentrate the infection."

That's a lot of guesswork and not a lot of science.

My skepticism has found confirmation in the following:

Cats were accused of spreading toxoplasmosis to California sea otters and dogs were accused of spreading campylobacter bacteria throughout Britain in new studies released in early July 2002­­but while the allegations were quickly amplified by mainstream news media and picked up by anti-feral cat and anti-street dog activists, the research behind each study overlooked key dietary factors in the transmission of the diseases.

Marine biologist Melissa Miller and colleagues with the Wildlife Health Center at the Davis campus of the University of California claimed in the July edition of the International Journal for Parasitology to have traced an ongoing seven-year decline in the population of endangered California sea otters to the fecal parasite Toxoplasma gondi. They found the microscopic parasite in 66 of the 107 sea otter carcasses they examined.

As domestic housecats are the only animal known to transmit Toxoplasma gondi in oocyst form, the form in which it could infect sea otters via water pollution, Miller et al concluded that the sea otters are in effect being killed by surface runoff contaminated by outdoor cats and/or untreated sewage containing feces from litterboxes.

However, Toxoplasma gondi is most often transmitted by ingesting raw meat from another infected animal. Cats typically acquire Toxoplasma gondi from eating mice and birds. Gulls may be the most voracious major mouse predator along the California coast, and California sea otters routinely kill and eat gulls they stalk from underwater, as well as scavenging fresh gull carcasses.

Miller et al did not even mention the possibility that the sea otters, like cats, may be infecting themselves through their own predatory habits.

But that was written in September ... of 2002! Can't the BBC check its facts and scrutinize the positions of lone researchers before reporting one person's agenda as the fruits of scientific research?

It's shocking that the UC Davis researchers are still peddling this nonsense four years after publication of an inconclusive study and a virtual smackdown courtesy of Animal People Magazine.

Neither I nor Animal People needed research grants to reach that conclusion.