Pinniped High levels of organic chemicals accumulate in these animals since they are near the top of food chains and have large reserves of blubber. Lactating mothers can pass the toxins on to their young. These pollutants can cause gastrointestinal cancers, decreased reproductivity and greater vulnerability to infectious diseases. Other man-made threats include habitat destruction by oil and gas exploitation, encroachment by boats, and underwater noise. Pinniped Pinnipeds, commonly known as seals, are a widely distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic marine mammals. They comprise the extant families Odobenidae (whose only living member is the walrus), Otariidae (the eared
Pinniped that the tricks performed for audiences are "exaggerated variations of their natural behaviors" and distract the people from the animal's unnatural environment. California sea lions are used in military applications by the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program, including detecting naval mines and enemy divers. In the Persian Gulf, the animals have been trained to swim behind divers approaching a U.S. naval ship and attach a clamp with a rope to the diver's leg. Navy officials say that the sea lions can do this in seconds, before the enemy realizes what happened. Organizations like PETA believe that such operations put the