Animals
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Attention

Thousands of starfish wash up on beach at Edinburgh, Scotland

Starfish washed up on Portobello beach
© Susan TomesStarfish washed up on Portobello beach
Thousands of starfish have been found washed up on Portobello beach in Edinburgh.

They were spotted on Sunday by local residents who were out walking in the coastal suburb.

Edinburgh-based Susan Tomes, who was on the beach with her family, told BBC Scotland: "It was the strangest thing I have ever seen on Portobello beach.

"We saw this pinkish drift before realising with horror that they were starfish - thousands of them.

"People were looking at it and wondering what had happened to them.

Attention

Thousands of starfish wash up at Skegness, UK

Matt Warman's photo of starfish washed up along the beach at Gibraltar Point, Skegness.
© Matt WarmanMatt Warman's photo of starfish washed up along the beach at Gibraltar Point, Skegness.
The beach at Gibraltar Point was tinted orange after thousands of starfish washed up during strong winds.

The striking image here was captured by Boston and Skegness MP Matt Warman during a walk along the beach.

He tweeted the image last week with the caption: "Huge numbers of starfish washed up at a very chilly Gibraltar Point this morning."

But depite the odd sight, experts at Skegness Aquarium and Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust say it is a fairly common occurrence.

Fish

Scientists warn of suffocating oceans as huge dead zones quadruple since 1950

Dead sardines in Chile
© Felix Marquez/APA fisherman on a beach in Temuco, Chile that is blanketed with dead sardines, a result of algal blooms that suck oxygen out of the water.

Areas starved of oxygen in open ocean and by coasts have soared in recent decades, risking dire consequences for marine life and humanity


Ocean dead zones with zero oxygen have quadrupled in size since 1950, scientists have warned, while the number of very low oxygen sites near coasts have multiplied tenfold. Most sea creatures cannot survive in these zones and current trends would lead to mass extinction in the long run, risking dire consequences for the hundreds of millions of people who depend on the sea.

Climate change caused by fossil fuel burning is the cause of the large-scale deoxygenation, as warmer waters hold less oxygen. The coastal dead zones result from fertiliser and sewage running off the land and into the seas.


Comment: As the man-made global warming hoax spirals out of control, evidence suggests that the world is on the brink of a new ice age. The 'warming' that is taking place nowadays is likely due to increased volcanic activity and connected with a minute slowdown in planetary rotation.


The analysis, published in the journal Science, is the first comprehensive analysis of the areas and states: "Major extinction events in Earth's history have been associated with warm climates and oxygen-deficient oceans." Denise Breitburg, at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in the US and who led the analysis, said: "Under the current trajectory that is where we would be headed. But the consequences to humans of staying on that trajectory are so dire that it is hard to imagine we would go quite that far down that path."

"This is a problem we can solve," Breitburg said. "Halting climate change requires a global effort, but even local actions can help with nutrient-driven oxygen decline." She pointed to recoveries in Chesapeake Bay in the US and the Thames river in the UK, where better farm and sewage practices led to dead zones disappearing.

However, Prof Robert Diaz at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, who reviewed the new study, said: "Right now, the increasing expansion of coastal dead zones and decline in open ocean oxygen are not priority problems for governments around the world. Unfortunately, it will take severe and persistent mortality of fisheries for the seriousness of low oxygen to be realised."

Comment: The Gulf of Mexico is now the largest dead zone in the world - and we have factory farming to blame for it. Perhaps increased methane outgassing and undersea volcanic activity (it is estimated there are up to one million of these 'submarine volcanoes') are also contributory factors to these devastating 'dead zones'?

The significant increase of fish die off's and strange migratory behaviour of marine life could be considered other potential signs of such activity.


Fish

Hundreds of dead fish mysteriously wash up on beach in Adelaide, Australia

Hundreds of dead fish have mysteriously washed up on an Adelaide beach as authorities warn swimming is off limits
Hundreds of dead fish have mysteriously washed up on an Adelaide beach as authorities warn swimming is off limits
Hundreds of dead fish have mysteriously washed up on an Adelaide beach as authorities warn swimming is off limits.

Locals were shocked to find fish including mullet, trevally, bream and snapper washing up at West Lakes this week, 7 News reported.

One woman said she saw over 50 stranded on a concrete pillar.

Another said: 'We have a lot of people that come down here to do local fishing and they might be poisoning their children if they take the fish home.'

Fish

Rare, venomous sea snake found on Southern California beach

yellow-bellied sea snake
© Natural History Museum of Los Angeles CountyYellow-bellied sea snake
A rare venomous sea snake found slithering on the sand in Newport Beach earlier this week was one of a growing number of the serpents apparently drawn far north of their usual habitat by the spread of warm ocean temperatures, a biologist said Thursday.

The yellow-bellied sea snake discovered near the 18th Street lifeguard tower on Monday was the third report of the species in Southern California since 2015 - and the fifth since 1972, said Greg Pauly, herpetological curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Attention

Wild Florida rhesus monkeys are excreting rare herpes B virus that could be dangerous to humans

Florida rhesus monkey herpes b
Wildlife agency says free-roaming monkeys at state park are a public health concern, as 30% may have Herpes B that can spread to visitors via bodily fluids.
Wildlife managers in Florida say they want to remove roaming monkeys from the state in light of a new study published on Wednesday, which finds some of the animals are excreting a virus that can be dangerous to humans.

Scientists studying a growing population of rhesus macaques in Silver Springs state park say that rather than just carrying herpes B, which is common in the species, some of the monkeys have the virus in their saliva and other bodily fluids, posing a potential risk of spreading the disease.

Human cases of the virus have been rare, with about 50 documented worldwide, and there have been no known transmissions of it to people from wild rhesus macaques in Florida or elsewhere. However, the researchers say the issue has not been thoroughly studied.

Fish

A marine biologist says a humpback whale protected her from a huge tiger shark while diving

Nan Hauser with Whale
© CatersThe 22 tonne humpback whale protecting Nan Hauser from a shark.
An American marine biologist says footage of her swimming with a humpback whale shows the large mammal protecting her from a tiger shark.

Nan Hauser, 63, president of the Center for Cetacean Research and Conservation and a Brunswick, Maine, resident, says she uploaded footage of her encounter Monday and it quickly spread across the internet.

Hauser tells the Portland Press Herald she was in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific Ocean when she came face-to-face with a 23-tonne humpback whale, which approached her and began nudging her around the water. She says the whale also shielded her with a fin and even lifted her out of the water on one occasion.

Attention

Record number of cold stunned turtles for Texas

Padre Island National Seashore's Tom Backof holds a rehabilitated sea turtle before releasing it
Padre Island National Seashore's Tom Backof holds a rehabilitated sea turtle before releasing it
Florida sea turtles weren't the only ones impacted by last week's cold snap.

In Texas, more than 2,000 turtles were cold stunned, which breaks all state records. Many of the turtles have been brought to Texas A&M University in addition to NOAA Fisheries Galveston Laboratory Sea Turtle Hospital.

While the situation is more dramatic in Texas, the Panhandle is experiencing its second largest cold stun event. More than 850 cold-stunned turtles have been taken in for treatment at Gulf World Marine Institute after temperatures dropped in the bays.


Wolf

Woman killed by pit bull terrier in West Monroe, Louisiana

PIT BULL ATTACK
A pit bull fatally wounded a woman at a Brownsville area pet boarding house last night. Ouachita Parish Sheriffs spokesperson Glen Springfield says deputies arrived at the Happy Hounds Hotel and found the victim had been severely injured...

"When the deputies got there they found a female victim that was severely injured apparently by the pit bull that was being housed at the location."

Springfield says first responders tried to stabilize the woman, but the wounds were fatal.


"She appeared to be injured, medical assistance was rendered but it was fatal."

Black Cat

Leopard kills, eats 2 children in 6 hours in Madhya Pradesh, India

Leopard
Leopard
A leopard killed and ate two children in a span of 12 hours in Chhindwara district on Sunday, triggering panic among villagers living on the fringes of the forest range.

With these two deaths, five children have now been killed by tigers and leopards in the state in three months.

What terrifies the villagers is that the leopard struck in clear daylight. On Sunday afternoon, it killed a three year-old girl in front of her house in Mohli Mata village and made off with the corpse. About six hours later, it struck again and killed a 10-year-old boy 3km away in Jholidhana village.

The victim, Harish Tekam, was sitting outside his house when he was attacked. The leopard was so swift that no one heard a thing. When his mother came outside a little later, she saw blood splatters on the walls of her little hut and the boy missing.