Seal finger

Seal finger, also known as sealer's finger and spekkfinger (from the Norwegian for "blubber"),^[2] is an infection that afflicts the fingers of seal hunters and other people who handle seals, as a result of bites or contact with exposed seal bones;^{[citation needed]} it has also been contracted by exposure to untreated seal pelts.^{[citation needed]} The State of Alaska Section of Epidemiology defines it as "a finger infection associated with bites, cuts, or scratches contaminated by the mouths, blood, or blubber of certain marine mammals".^[3]

Seal finger was first described scientifically in 1907.^[4][5] It can cause cellulitis, joint inflammation, and swelling of the bone marrow; untreated, the course of "seal finger" is slow and results often in thickened contracted joint.^[3] Historically, seal finger was treated by amputation of the affected digits once they became unusable.^[5][6] Ariana Bindman, for SFGATE in 2023, reported that "for hundreds of years, fishers long feared contracting" it due to amputation; in present day, seal finger is more commonly an "affliction among biologists, veterinarians and scuba divers".^[6]

The precise nature of the organism responsible for seal finger is unknown, as it has resisted culturing because most cases are promptly treated with antibiotics;^[3] however, as seal finger can be treated with tetracycline or similar antibiotics, the causative organism is most likely bacterial.^[7] In 1991, there was the first reported association of Mycoplasma with seal finger following a trainer sustaining a seal bite at the New England Aquarium.^[7][5] In 1998, Baker, Ruoff, and Madoff showed that the organism is most likely a species of Mycoplasma called Mycoplasma phocacerebrale.^[7] This Mycoplasma was isolated in an epidemic of seal disease occurring in the Baltic Sea.^[8]