Scientists believe catastrophic levels of toxin have destroyed the whales’ ability to reproduce

Britain’s last surviving pod of killer whales will die out because females have been made sterile by chemical pollutants, scientists said yesterday.

The eight whales, found off the west coast of Scotland, have not produced a calf in a quarter of a century. Researchers believe that they have been exposed to catastrophic levels of chemicals that interfere with hormones and have destroyed their ability to reproduce.

“There’s no way that this population can recover,” Dr Paul Jepson, of the Zoological Society of London, said.

The assessment came as researchers warned that increasingly complex cocktails of pollutants that can affect the fertility and growth of wildlife are being dumped into Britain’s landfill sites, rivers and seas. The sources include rising levels of human pharmaceuticals, including antidepressants,