Herpesvirus disease in a beaked whale stranded during naval exercises in Canary islands

Abstract

On April 18, 2005, one female adult beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) was found dead on Fuerteventura Island. Necropsy was performed “in situ” after an estimated post-mortem time of 48–72 h (code 3). NATO naval maneuvers, designated as “Noble Javelin 2005,” took place between the Fuerteventura and Gran islands over several days and ended on April 16, 2005. This exercise was designed to demonstrate the capabilities of the new Response Force to attending news media. The Canary Islands government and military authorities assured that sonar testing was not included during the exercises because of environmental reasons. The stranded whale exhibited a relatively good body condition. The main external findings consisted of post-mortem shark bites in the melon and in the dorsal and ventral abdomen. The stomach contained some foodstuffs. The main histological results were negative for lung fat emboli. The lymph nodes and spleen had severe, diffuse, coagulative necrosis and fibronecrotic vasculitis with promonant thrombi. A large number of monocyte-like cells had intranuclear inclusion bodies consistent with those of herpesviral or adenoviral infection. PCR techniques for Morbillivirus and Herpesvirus demonstrated to be negative for morbillivirus and positive for Herpesvirus in limphoid tissue samples.The sequence obtained was classified within the cetacean alpha-herpesviruses group. This report describes pathological findings in a single, female adult BW stranded in temporal and geographic association with naval exercises in the Canary Islands. The pathological findings indicated that this whale died with a severe systemic herpesviral infection and clearly exhibited lesions different from those of the fat and gas embolic findings described in BW mass strandings linked to sonar exposure (Fernández et al. 2005).