A serological survey and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit of Ringed seals (Nattiit) in Frobisher Bay, Nunavut
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Ringed seals, or nattiit in Inuktitut, continue to provide as a food staple for Nunavummiut, and the need for monitoring the health of the seal remains important. Seals in other regions, such as nattiit in the Baltic Sea, Hawaiian Monk seals, and California sea lions have been negatively impacted by disease-causing pathogens, making serosurveys important for monitoring seal health. Additionally, nattiit have been known to contribute high heavy metal content for Nunavik Inuit based on frequency of consumption. This leads to the question: are nattiit safe to eat based on pathogens and heavy metals? This thesis will frame the project around Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, which is Inuit knowledge surrounding the nattiq (ringed seals singular), including seal health, and changes in abundance over time. \n A serological survey was conducted on 55 nattiit for five pathogens: Brucella canis and abortus, Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae, Leptospira interrogans, and Toxoplasma gondii. A digestion assay was used to test tongue and diaphragm samples for Trichinella larvae. Interviews were conducted with nine Local Knowledge Holders (LKH) to gather concerns about nattiq health, research interests and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. The interviews were based on nine semi-structured open-ended questions centred on nattiq health and food practices. Six main themes were identified from the interviews: age\npreference, seal abundance, illness in seals, methods of inspection, eating seal, and harp seals. \n All but two seals were deemed safe for consumption by the hunters. Thirty seals were young-of-the-year, 10 were juvenile (over one-year-old), 11 were adults, and four were of unknown age. Twenty-six seals were female, 21 were male, and eight were of unknown sex. All tested seals were negative for Brucella canis, and 20.5% (nine of 44) were seropositive for B. abortus. Of 52 seals tested for Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae (21%) were seropositive. All tested seals were negative for Leptospira interrogans serovars Canicola and Hardjo, with 61.5% (27 of 44) positive for serovar Bratislava, 4.5% (two of 44) for serovar Grippotyphosa, 90.9% (40 of 44) for serovar Icterohaemorrhagiae, and 22.7% (ten of 44) for serovar Pomona . The seroprevalence for Toxoplasma gondii was 9.8% (five of 51). All tested samples were negative for Trichinella. There were no significant associations between age classes and\nseroprevalence for all of the serological results. The only significant association between sex and seroprevalence was for Erysipelothrix (males > females); all others had no significant associations. Based on the serological results and digestion assay, this research did not identify any major health concerns for harvested nattiit or Inuit who continue to harvest them. Further testing to verify presence of all four pathogens detected from the serological results would be needed to identify risks and confirm which pathogens are actually present in the harvested nattiit of Frobisher Bay. Additionally, the results of this\nstudy are applicable to only the harvested nattiit population of Frobisher Bay.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".