Earth ChangesS


Black Cat

Hunger guides mountain lions' actions to enter residential districts

A cougar
© DreamstimeA cougar
In late February, CBS News Denver reported that mountain lion sightings were on the rise in Colorado's high country. Lion attacks on people in the state and around the world are rare, but the story referenced an attack on a 5-year-old boy in 2016 by a mountain lion near Aspen.

Wildlife biologists around the world studying these big cats have had difficulty explaining why these attacks occur, even after tracking the predators with GPS collars. A study from Colorado State University and Colorado Parks and Wildlife provides new insight. Researchers found that while the animals are generally fearful of and avoid humans, hunger can dampen that fear.

The study, "Hunger mediates apex predator's risk avoidance response in wildland-urban interface," was recently published online in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

Comment: See also: Mountain lions are showing up all over the San Francisco Bay Area - and beyond


Snowflake

Exceptionally large amount of snow fell in Northern Hemisphere this winter

From the Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past department and the Finnish Meteorological Institute comes this press release today.

Exceptionally large amount of winter snow in Northern Hemisphere this year

The new Arctic Now product developed by the Finnish Meteorological Institute shows with one picture the extent of the area in the Northern Hemisphere currently covered by ice and snow. This kind of information, which shows the accurate state of the Arctic, becomes increasingly important due to climate change. The Arctic region will be discussed at the Arctic Meteorological Week which begins in Levi next week.
2018 snow cover northern hemisphere
© Finnish Meteorological Institute
In the Northern Hemisphere the maximum seasonal snow cover occurs in March. "This year has been a year with an exceptionally large amount of snow, when examining the entire Northern Hemisphere. The variation from one year to another has been somewhat great, and especially in the most recent years the differences between winters have been very great", says Kari Luojus, Senior Research Scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

Comment: Did you catch the comment about the 'thinning' arctic ice cover? and this:

NSIDC visually eliminates record Arctic sea ice gains for Autumn 2017


Attention

Human-tiger conflicts on the rise in Sumatra, Indonesia

Tiger
Three construction workers were at work on a building site in the Indragiri Hilir district of the Sumatran province of Riau when they noticed a tiger lurking around. They decided to wait for the animal to leave, but when they thought it was safe to leave they chanced upon the predator, which mauled one of them to death.

Nor was this the first deadly attack by a tiger in the area. In January a female worker was mauled to death by a Sumatran tiger at a palm oil plantation some 20km away.

A week ago another attack by a Sumatran tiger ended in tragedy when a local was mauled to death in the village of Mandailing Natal in North Sumatra. Villagers, believing the wild tiger to be a shapeshifting evil spirit called a "siluman," hunted the animal down and killed him. They proceeded to disembowel the dead tiger before hanging his carcass up in a hut.

Attention

Blue penguins washing up sick and injured on beaches in Auckland and Northland, New Zealand

Birds NZ have found 64 little blue penguins dead on the east coast of the upper North Island, from Mangawhai to Kauri Mountain, in January.
© Birds NZBirds NZ have found 64 little blue penguins dead on the east coast of the upper North Island, from Mangawhai to Kauri Mountain, in January.
This year's unusually hot and stormy summer has taken a toll on Auckland and Northland's seabirds with thousands of dead and ill birds found on the regions' beaches.

Little blue penguins have been particularly hard hit, with hundreds of them washing up dead or exhausted.

Seabird experts said a combination of bad weather, a lack of food, heat and a change in the prevailing maritime wind directions had coincided with when the little blues like to come ashore to moult - putting them under great stress.

Karen Saunders, director of the National Bird Rescue on Waiheke Island - an established penguin breeding ground - said she'll remember this summer as the summer of seabird starvation.

Comment: See also this report from the beginning of the year: Thousands of dead penguins wash up on beaches in Northland, New Zealand


Attention

Signs and Portents: Mutant lamb with two heads born in China

BIZARRE:It had had two conjoined heads, four eyes, two ears and two mouths
© ASIAWIREBIZARRE:It had had two conjoined heads, four eyes, two ears and two mouths
The bizarre creature was born on a farm in the county of Gangu in the north-west of the country.

It had two conjoined heads, four eyes, two ears and two mouths but was unable to stand up.

The farmer said its mother rejected it so he tried to keep it alive by hand-feeding it.

But his efforts were in vain and the creature died just two days after birth, local media report.

The lamb suffered from diprosopus or craniofacial duplication, resulting in shared features.

It is rare for such creatures to survive more than a few hours after birth because their internal organs are often deformed.

Attention

Signs and Portents: Mutant pig with human-like face dies hours after birth in Argentina

The pig was born with human-like features
© CENSHOCK: The pig was born with human-like features

The bizarre-looking babe is the latest shocking mutation to be discovered in a rural region Argentina.

The deformed animal was spotted next to its mother after she gave birth to eight piglets in the area of Santo Domingo in Santiago del Estero Province.

But it died a few hours after birth when it had trouble breathing on March 7.

Its deformities are believed to be caused by pesticides and GM crops.


Cloud Lightning

A bolt out of the blue? Lightning strike kills pupil, injures five others in Uganda

lightning
The Kisoro District Education Officer, Mr Frank Munyarubanza, said that it was not even raining but lightning from nowhere struck and killed a pupil leaving others she was playing with injured.
A 16-year old primary six pupil at Kahumure Primary School in Bukimbiri Sub-County, Kisoro District was on Wednesday afternoon struck dead by lightning while her five other colleagues were left injured.

The injured pupils were rushed to Mutorere hospital for treatment while the body of the deceased was taken to Kisoro hospital for postmortem

The Kigezi regional police spokesman, Mr Elly Maate, identified the deceased as Pricila Night, a daughter to Mr Evalist Kafuku, resident of Kyogo Village Bukimbiri Sub-County.

He named the injured as; Angela Kyarisima, Anathianta Nuwamanya, Aluminanta Kyarisima, Mathias Turinawe all in primary seven and Florida Ninsiima in primary four.

Comment: Other recent fatalities due to lightning strikes include that of a teenager and a soldier in Pakistan in 2 separate incidents.


Attention

Tremor swarm at Yellowstone continues - began in February

CC BY 2.0 / Michael McCarthy / Yellowstone-4193
© CC BY 2.0 / Michael McCarthy / Yellowstone-4193Yellowstone
Laying underneath the tranquil and beautiful geysers, waterfalls, and mountains of Wyoming lies the Yellowstone caldera. The supervolcano has been worrying some for decades, but now experts fear an eruption could happen soon after reporting a "spate of tremors."

According to WMD, a spate of four mini-tremors in the area following a period of "rest" has raised fears among some that the supervolcano is about to blow. Although the Yellowstone supervolcano hasn't erupted for 631,000 years, scientists have been diligently working to understand the last eruption so they can more accurately predict when a big one will happen again.

The most recent quake came on March 11 when a small 1.5 tremor took place beneath the surface. The strongest one, a 1.8 magnitude earthquake, came just hours before this, and people are concerned that Yellowstone could be about to blow.

Comment: See Also:


Snowflake Cold

SOTT Focus: Yale's Two Climate Bombs Point to Impending Ice Age

Beaufort gyre
Let's just assume humans are melting the arctic: it is only at a faster pace than what happens every cycle, and somehow leads to an ice age.

They keep talking about runaway warming but that isn't what Earth does. This video was an attempt to use ONLY the mainstream science and demonstrate that you don't need to be a conspiracy theorist or a "denier" to believe cooling is coming... you just need to believe in mainstream science :)

Isn't that even more fun than doing it the usual way?


Attention

7 Spinner dolphins found dead in 4 days in Tamil Nadu, India - (UPDATE) deaths increase to 14 in 5 days

Tragic end: Local residents take a look at the carcass of a dolphin on the Kalpakkam beach
Tragic end: Local residents take a look at the carcass of a dolphin on the Kalpakkam beach
Five spinner dolphins were found dead at three fishing villages to the south of Kalpakkam, on Monday.

R. Sarveswaran and R. Deivasundaram, residents of the Uyyali Kuppam village and members of the Sea Turtle Protection Force, found three dolphins washed ashore around 5.30 a.m.

"We suspect that the dolphins got entangled in a fishing net used in steel body boats from Cuddalore districts.

Comment: Another spinner dolphin washed up dead in Negros Oriental, Philippines on the 12th March.

UPDATE: March 14

The News Minute reports:
The bodies of 7 spinner dolphins were washed ashore at fishing hamlets in Tamil Nadu's coasts on Tuesday. On Monday, 5 spinner dolphins were found dead in the same area.

In total, about 14 dolphins have been found dead in the last 3 days, according to a Deccan Chronicle report. Three dolphins were found at Venapurusham Kuppam in Mamallapuram and Sadras Kuppam, Uyyali Kuppam, Nainar Kuppam and Cuddalore Chinna Kuppam each saw one body washing ashore, according to the report.
Correctly speaking (going by both reports) that's 14 deaths in 5 days.