Earth Changes
A third killer whale carcass has been found by wildlife rangers at Fraser Island, off the southern Queensland coast.
The whale was discovered late on Friday in a creek north of Kingfisher Bay on the island by Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service staff.
The discovery comes two days after two whales, believed to be a mother and calf, died on Wednesday when their pod became stranded on a sandbar in the Great Sandy Strait which separates the island from the mainland.
It's believed the whale discovered on Friday, which measures seven metres, had been dead for at least 24 hours before its discovery.
© Jorge Costa
A car is partially submerged on Highway 427 in Toronto on Monday, July 8, 2013
A car is partially submerged on Highway 427 in Toronto on Monday, July 8, 2013
As of late Monday evening, 91 mm of rain fell in the city while rainfall totals measured 106 mm at the suburban Pearson International Airport after the storms blew through. The rain began at 4 p.m. local time, stranding commuters in cars, buses and subway trains as the busy rush hour was getting underway.
Toronto Hydro reported late Monday that approximately 300,000 residents remained without power across the city. The agency advised residents to call 416-542-8000 to report an outage.
Tanya Bruckmueller, public affairs advisor at the agency, said Monday evening it was impossible to guess when power will be restored.
She said extra work crews were on standby ahead of the storm's arrival, and more were being called in.
© Allan Scadden
Karori man Stuart Cunningham noticed the flashes in the sky when he was walking to his house about 8pm. They were ''non directional'' and he originally thought someone nearby was doing flash photography. But when he logged on to Facebook he realised people as far away as Christchurch were also reporting seeing it.
While some speculated the flashes came from alien life forms coming to earth, he believed it was more likely a meteor shower.
MetService forecaster Dan Corbett said 124 strikes were recorded between about 6pm and midnight after a trough of cold air moved over relatively warm waters off the Wairarapa coast creating the conditions for the lightning storm.
Nearly all of the strikes happened out to sea and because they were so far offshore they struck without sound.
Source: The Dominion Post
Seven Sumatran tigers were angered when the foragers
accidentally trapped a cub, and mauled one man to death
An animal taming rescue team has saved a group of men who were trapped up trees for five days by an angry family of Sumatran tigers.
Five men were helped down from branches where they had survived on rain water as the endangered animals circled beneath them.
A sixth man was mauled to death. The 28-year-old sought refuge with his companions but, police said, "the branch broke, causing him to fall to the ground".
The group was out on Thursday in the remote, protected Mount Leuser National Park in Indonesia, searching for rare agar wood that can be sold to make incense and perfumes.
While using a trap to catch deer for food, they unwittingly caught a tiger cub instead. This enraged its mother, and caused five more of the animals to join in an attack on the foragers.
From the relative safety of the trees, the men used text messages to ask villagers for help.
accidentally trapped a cub, and mauled one man to death
Five men were helped down from branches where they had survived on rain water as the endangered animals circled beneath them.
A sixth man was mauled to death. The 28-year-old sought refuge with his companions but, police said, "the branch broke, causing him to fall to the ground".
The group was out on Thursday in the remote, protected Mount Leuser National Park in Indonesia, searching for rare agar wood that can be sold to make incense and perfumes.
While using a trap to catch deer for food, they unwittingly caught a tiger cub instead. This enraged its mother, and caused five more of the animals to join in an attack on the foragers.
From the relative safety of the trees, the men used text messages to ask villagers for help.
Texas Brine spokesman Sonny Cranch said 92 buyout offers have been made, with 44 accepted so far.
"I know, I know," Joanie Mistretta said, soothing her. "You come back now and it's just sad."
They were supposed to be planning camping trips, cookouts and potlucks. Instead, the Mistrettas, the Richies and many neighbors in the swampy Assumption Parish community are packing up decades' worth of belongings, chased from waterfront homes that were supposed to be retirement nests by a gas-emitting, 22-acre sinkhole less than a mile away.
The sinkhole, discovered Aug. 3, resulted from a collapsed underground salt dome cavern about 40 miles south of Baton Rouge. After oil and natural gas came oozing up and acres of the swampland liquefied into muck, the community's 350 residents were advised to evacuate.
Additional images
Biloxi, Miss -- Stingrays, fish, shrimp, eels and crabs, all dead, were spread along beaches on the Mississippi Gulf Coast Tuesday. Officials say it's the second day of a fish kill for the record books.
"According to people at the MDMR, that have been working there for a long time, this extent, stretching as far as it did from the Beau Rivage all the way down to long beach, so from Biloxi to Long Beach, was a large area, and they just haven't seen that large of an area in the past," said Kelly Lucas, chief scientific officer for the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources.
A family from Texas, with Mississippi family ties, described the scene yesterday as biblical.
"Last night, we went out at low tide and there was just massive amounts of dead fish and stingrays and shrimp, shrimp 7 to 8 inches long. Never seen anything like that before," said Alicia Aldridge.
"It was a lot. Disturbing," said 18-year-old Kendalyn Aldridge,
© Marion County Sheriff's Office
As many as 40 sheep were found dead at a field in Turner. A cause of death has not been determined, July 1, 2013
As many as 40 sheep were found dead at a field in Turner. A cause of death has not been determined, July 1, 2013
Neighbor Floyd Noel said the dead sheep brought in pests like buzzards and flies, but the stench was the worst part, he said.
His wife called the sheriff's deputies to the farm when she said she heard strange noises and saw some sheep stumbling around and falling at the property on Little Road SE.
The deputies found between 30 and 40 dead sheep on about 80 acres of land, but also noticed more than 200 sheep grazing in the field.
The temperature at the time was in the mid-90s and one deputy noticed a protein-based soy supplement in the field, officials said.
Neighbors said they have long been concerned about the care of the sheep and conditions turned fatal as temperatures climbed into the 90s.
The intensity of the current eruptive phase for Mexico's Popocatépetl volcano remains high. A phase of particularly strong tremor accompanying continuous explosions and ash emissions occurred this morning. As a consequence of the elevated activity, CENAPRED raised the alert level to Yellow, Phase 3. An exclusion zone of 12 km radius around the volcano is in place. During the (intermittent) eruptions, a steam and ash plume is rising about 3 km above the crater. A giant SO2 plume can be seen drifting north from Popocatepétl, which is notorious of its large SO2 output during eruptions. -Volcano Discovery
© USGS
2013-07-07 20:30:07 UTC
2013-07-08 06:30:07 UTC+10:00 at epicenter
Location
6.016°S 149.721°E depth=62.0km (38.5mi)
Nearby Cities
29km (18mi) NE of Kandrian, Papua New Guinea
69km (43mi) SW of Kimbe, Papua New Guinea
312km (194mi) ENE of Lae, Papua New Guinea
336km (209mi) WSW of Kokopo, Papua New Guinea
471km (293mi) NE of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
Technical Details
© USGS
2013-07-07 08:38:59 UTC
2013-07-07 01:38:59 UTC-07:00 at epicenter
Location:
36.456°N 112.576°W depth=5.2km (3.2mi)
Nearby Cities:
4km (34mi) S of Fredonia, Arizona
102km (63mi) SE of Hurricane, Utah
111km (69mi) SE of Washington, Utah
115km (71mi) SE of Saint George, Utah
336km (209mi) N of Phoenix, Arizona
Technical data
Comment: 22 June 2013: Calgary, Alberta devastated in deluge of biblical proportions