Earth ChangesS


Fish

SOTT Focus: Procession of the Damned: Mass Bird and Fish Deaths Turning Up Everywhere

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Triste hallazgo: El Dr Alasdair Bruce, uno de los expertos que estudia los cangrejos muertos. Es el segundo año seguido que las playas han quedado colmadas de cangrejos
And the Procession of Damned Data continues...

Yesterday, January 4th, RyanX discussed the recent mysterious deaths of blackbirds and fish in Arkansas. As reports about mass deaths of birds and sea creatures continue to pour in from all over the world, perhaps it's time to, how should I put it... "open up the field" ?

January 4th: Canada: Hundreds of Dead Fish 'A Natural Occurrence'
Sarnia, Ontario - Hundreds of dead fish that washed up on shore in the north end of the St. Clair River is a natural occurrence and not the result of a chemical spill, a government officials say.

Only one species was affected, further supporting the idea it was a natural occurrence, she said.

"There was nothing to indicate that it was man-made."
January 4th: US: Thousands Of Fish Dead In Spruce Creek, Florida
Thousands of dead fish are floating in Volusia County Tuesday. They were all in Spruce Creek in Port Orange. The fish kill is unusual, according to people who live along the creek, because it's warm.

It's been a week since there were freezing temperatures, but there are fish lining the banks. Some said it's the worst kill they've ever seen; thousands of fish lined the twists and turns of Spruce Creek.

The sheer number of fish and the smell were both overwhelming.

Most of the fish were mullet, ladyfish and catfish, and not the valuable sporting fish called snook that died in mass during a cold spell last year.

Comment: To see the staggering number of 'die-offs' around the world depicted on the world map (with links to the news stories) click here


Radar

Bird deaths: Did NWS Radar Capture Startled Flock?

Radar Beebe
© Plymouth State Weather Center
Weather radar in Little Rock, Ark. may have captured an image of a flock of birds as they rose from nighttime roosts near Beebe, Ark. on New Year's Eve. Thousands of redwing blackbirds were later found dead on the ground nearby.

Such radar images of bird flocks are not unusual. Weather radar sites near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Delaware sometimes capture the radar reflections of flocks of birds as they rise into the sky at sunrise on summer mornings.

Last night, Steve Zubrick, the science officer out at the National Weather Service forecast office in Sterling, Virginia, sent me a link to a radar image recorded beginning at 10:21 p.m. Central Time in Little Rock. That's about a half hour before reports began coming in about dead birds falling from the sky in Beebe.

The loop shows rainstorms moving away to the north and east of the radar. But at a spot about 25 nautical miles northeast of the radar, an unusual reflection appears, expands and moves off to the southeast with the prevailing winds. It's the green blob on the still radar image above.

"Could these returns be birds disturbed from the nightly roosting sites?" Steve asks.

Comment: So what are the chances they actually captured a meteor explosion on radar? See the article below for details:

And They March! The Strange Tale of the Beebe Blackbirds


Black Cat

Mass Bird and Fish Deaths Becoming Worldwide Phenomenon

birds flying
© Agence France-Presse
The mysterious deaths of thousands of birds and fish is no longer confined to the US.

About 50 to 100 dead birds were discovered on a highway in central Sweden Tuesday. Scientists don't know what killed the jackdaws but one veterinarian suspects they may have been frightened by fireworks and then run over by a car.

"We have received information from local residents last night," County veterinarian Robert ter Horst told the Swedish site The Local. "Our main theory is that the birds were scared away because of the fireworks and landed on the road, but couldn't fly away from the stress and were hit by a car."

"We will continue to look at whether there are other theories, but then we have to do an autopsy on the birds. The birds just now are in a car on the way to a laboratory in Uppsala. We don't know exactly what happened yet, but we will continue the investigation," he added.

The Brazillian site Paraná-Online noted that 100 tons of fish have turned up dead off the coast of Paraná since last Thursday.

According to Google Translate, the site reported that the fish included sardine, croaker and catfish.

"On Thursday we began to realize very dead fish," Edmir Manoel Ferreira, president of the Federation of Fishermen's Colony of Parana, said. "Only one community came to bury 15 tons. We are experiencing a very sad situation on the coast."

"We will wait to see what happened, but speculations suggest that fish may have died due to an environmental imbalance, dropping a fishing boat or leakage of chemicals," Captain Edson Oliveira Avila, regional coordinator of Civil Defense in the Paraná region, told Paraná-Online.

Attention

More birds fall out of the sky, this time in Sweden

Christer Olofsson
© Björn Larsson Rosvall/ScanpixChrister Olofsson, rescue preparedness director, with dead bird in Falköping.

A county veterinarian has speculated that the birds that fell from the sky in central Sweden on Tuesday may have been frightened by fireworks, then run over by a car after landing on the road in the dark.

Shortly before midnight on Tuesday, residents found 50 to 100 jackdaws on a street in Falköping southeast of Skövde. The incident echoed a number of unexplained incidents earlier this week across the southern US.

County veterinarian Robert ter Horst believes that the birds may have been literally scared to death by fireworks set off on Tuesday night.

"We have received information from local residents last night. Our main theory is that the birds were scared away because of the fireworks and landed on the road, but couldn't fly away from the stress and were hit by a car," he explained to The Local on Wednesday.

He added that they likely had difficulty orienting themselves in the dark and although they have received one report involving a vehicular collision with the birds, ter Horst believes they may have been hit by more.

"We will continue to look at whether there are other theories, but then we have to do an autopsy on the birds. The birds just now are in a car on the way to a laboratory in Uppsala. We don't know exactly what happened yet, but we will continue the investigation," he added.

ter Horst noted that he has also received some reports about pigeons, but the incident has happened too quickly to assume that it is related to the untimely demise of the jackdaws.

Bizarro Earth

Earthquake Magnitude 6.3 - Southeast of The Loyalty Islands

Loyalty Isld Quake_050111
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Wednesday, January 05, 2011 at 06:46:17 UTC

Wednesday, January 05, 2011 at 05:46:17 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
22.304°S, 171.595°E

Depth:
135.9 km (84.4 miles)

Region:
SOUTHEAST OF THE LOYALTY ISLANDS

Distances:
50 km (30 miles) WNW of Ile Hunter, Loyalty Isl., New Caledonia

315 km (195 miles) WSW of Ceva-i-Ra, Fiji

530 km (330 miles) E of NOUMEA, New Caledonia

1635 km (1020 miles) NNW of Auckland, New Zealand

Bizarro Earth

Victoria river mysteriously turns bright green

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© Jane London/HandoutThe water in Goldstream River, at Goldstream Provincial Park, Victoria, flows a bright green, Dec. 29, 2010.
Victoria, British Columbia - Horrified nature-lovers at Goldstream Provincial Park watched as the Goldstream River turned bright green late Wednesday afternoon.

The fluorescent green colouring appeared to start about 500 metres on the Victoria side of the entrance to the park and, over the course of an hour, the substance flowed down into the environmentally sensitive estuary.

By 5:30 p.m. the river, known for its dramatic salmon runs, eagles and other wildlife, was back to its normal colour.

Igloo

Freezing weather leads to south China evacuations

Beijing - Freezing temperatures have forced the evacuation of nearly 60,000 people from their homes and caused more than $200 million in economic losses in southern China, the government said Wednesday.

Ice and sleet have collapsed the roofs of more than 1,200 homes and forced the evacuation of 58,000 people across the southern regions of Jiangxi, Hunan, Chongqing, Sichuan and Guizhou, the Ministry of Civil Affairs reported.

Freezing weather has also damaged nearly 300,000 acres of crops, including cabbage and rice, and caused about $203.8 million in economic losses across southern China, the ministry said.

Umbrella

Australia: Reptiles roam free as Queensland's flooding reaches highest levels yet, global seaborne coal market down 40 percent

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© UnknownAn aerial view of partially submerged houses in flooded Theodore in Australia' s state of Queensland
They have already been described as being of "Biblical proportions" but last night the Australian city of Rockhampton was bracing itself for even worse as flood waters were expected to reach their highest levels.

In the growing crisis military aircraft were rushing to get supplies to residents, to whom there is now only one land access route left.

Police were desperately urging people to stay out of the snake-infested waters, that have so far claimed the lives of three people.

More than 500 homes in the city have been evacuated but some residents are refusing to leave, Australian broadcaster ABC reported.

In other areas of Queensland, residents were beginning the recovery process, while others prepared for fresh floods.

The major highway through the city looks more like a major river. Were it not for the tops of road signs poking out it would be unrecognisable as one of Australia's main arterial routes.

Igloo

40,000 'devil' crabs wash up on Kent coast after dying from hypothermia in freezing sea

Thousands of dead crabs have washed up along the Kent coast, with environmental experts believing the cold weather in Britain is to blame.

The velvet swimming crabs - also called devil crabs - are thought to be victims of Britain's coldest December in 120 years, which left sea temperatures much lower than average.
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Triste hallazgo: El Dr Alasdair Bruce, uno de los expertos que estudia los cangrejos muertos. Es el segundo año seguido que las playas han quedado colmadas de cangrejos

More than 40,000 of the crabs - Britain's largest swimming crab - are littering beaches around Thanet, along with smaller numbers of whelks, sponges and anemones.

Coastal warden Tony Sykes said: 'We suspect that climate change and warmer weather has lured the crabs towards the shoreline.

'They could also be attracted to these waters looking for kelp, to feed on.

'We believe the sudden temperature drop causes the crabs to suffer from hypothermia and die.'

It is the second year in a row that icy temperatures have killed sea creatures in such large numbers.

Attention

Hundreds of dead snapper washed up on New Zealand beach

Dead snapper in New Zealand
© DesconocidoPesca del horror – peces muertos flotando y sobre las orillas en la Península de Coromandel
Hundreds of dead snapper have washed up on Coromandel beaches on the North Island of New Zealand, leaving holidaymakers perplexed.

The mysterious incident came as the southern United States was hit with a second unexplained mass bird death within a week.

People at Little Bay and Waikawau Bay, on the north-east of the peninsula, were stunned when children came out of the sea with armfuls of the fish and within minutes the shore was littered with them.

Charlotte Pearsall, whose family have lived at Little Bay for the last 30 years, said she had never seen anything like it.

"It was so surreal," she said. "It's such an incredible waste - it could've fed the whole northern tip of the Coromandel."