Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Dog poisoned by benthic cyanobacteria in New Zealand river
By Wood, Susanna A et al.·Published in Toxicon : official journal of the International Society on Toxinology·2010·Cawthron Institute·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Identification of a benthic microcystin-producing filamentous cyanobacterium (Oscillatoriales) associated with a dog poisoning in New Zealand.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A dog in New Zealand died after eating a type of blue-green algae found in the Waitaki River. The algae, identified as a new species of cyanobacterium, produced toxins called microcystins, which can be harmful to pets. This incident marks the first known case in New Zealand of a dog dying from this specific type of algae. Pet owners should be cautious about letting their dogs swim in or ingest materials from water bodies where algae blooms are present, especially during warm weather when these blooms are more likely to occur.
People also search for: dog death from algae · cyanobacteria poisoning in dogs · symptoms of dog poisoning from water · blue-green algae dog safety
Abstract
In November 2008 a dog died soon after ingesting benthic "algal" mat material from the Waitaki River, New Zealand. Based on a morphological examination of environmental material, the causative organism was putatively identified as the filamentous cyanobacterium Phormidium sp. Two strains (VUW25 and CYN61) were isolated and cultured to enable further taxonomic and cyanotoxin characterisation. Phylogenetic analyses based on a region of the 16S rRNA gene sequence, intergenic spacer (ITS) region and the mcyE gene demonstrated that the species was likely to be a new Planktothrix species that is either benthic or has a biphasic life cycle. Using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), microcystin-LR, [D-Asp(3), Dha(7)] microcystin-LR, [D-Asp(3)] microcystin-LR, and minor proportions of [D-Asp(3), ADMAdda(5)] microcystin-LhR were identified. This is the first report of [D-Asp(3)] microcystin-LR, [D-Asp(3), Dha(7)] microcystin-LR and an ADMAadda variant in New Zealand. No cylindrospermopsins, saxitoxins or anatoxins were detected. Dog deaths caused by the consumption of cyanobacterial mats containing anatoxins have previously been reported in New Zealand. To our knowledge, however, this is the first instance of a benthic microcystin-producing species causing an animal death in New Zealand.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20043936/