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Number of dead dolphins washed up this year in Virginia hits 100

Mary Beth Cleavelin
The Virginian-Pilot
Tue, 06 Aug 2013 12:59 UTC
Image
© Dorothy Edwards | The Virginian-Pilot
From right, Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response Team members Krystle Rodrique of Virginia Beach, Va. and intern Liz Schell of Durango, Co. carry a deceased male dolphin on a metal stretcher from Ocean View Beach in Norfolk, Va. on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013. This was their third dolphin retrieval of the day.
The number of dead dolphins that have washed ashore this year in Virginia reached 100 over the weekend.

Since Thursday, 13 dolphin corpses have been recovered in the state, bringing the total for 2013 well above the typical 64 found annually by the Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response Team.

Some of the dolphins have been severely decomposed, making it difficult for marine biologists to understand what is causing the die-off.

"We get calls from people who see them floating, but we don't have the equipment to track them down," said Joan Barns, spokeswoman for the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center. "Unfortunately, there are probably more dead dolphins out there, but they just haven't landed yet."

According to marine biologists, dolphin strandings peak in May and June. But this year, 44 dolphins were found dead on Virginia beaches in July, most in the southern part of the Chesapeake Bay. On average, only six or seven dead dolphins are picked up by the team in July.
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Bizarro Earth

Eight-foot sturgeon found belly up in Lake Washington

Mark Yuasa
Seattle Times
Mon, 05 Aug 2013 17:56 UTC
Dead Sturgeon
© Keith MagnusonA dead sturgeon was found floating in Lake Washington over the weekend.
Keith Magnuson who lives in Seattle along the shores of Lake Washington, was waterskiing Saturday when he came across a giant dead fish.

"At first I thought it was a shark, but then we figured out it was a large sturgeon," Magnuson said.

Magnuson found the sturgeon that he and a friend estimated to be about 8 feet long floating belly up north of Matthews Beach.

The dead sturgeon is now tied to a post, and state Fish and Wildlife planned to send out a biologist to take a look at it in the next couple days.
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Bizarro Earth

Sinkhole swallows car in South Florida


WTSP
Tue, 06 Aug 2013 11:45 UTC

Miami Beach -- Crews are working to repair a sinkhole in South Florida, after a car fell in it!

The driver of a Toyota sports car says he was waiting at a stop sign, when he felt his car begin to sink. He tried to drive out, but it was too late.

The driver was able to get out of the car, and crews later pulled the vehicle out of the sinkhole.

City officials say they believe construction equipment caused two cracks in a water main that caused the hole to open. About 500 residents had to deal with a water outage.

Source: CNN
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Stop

Python holds up traffic on expressway near Birmingham, UK

Paul Suart
Birmingham Mail, UK
Fri, 02 Aug 2013 16:15 UTC
Aston Expressway closed while police remove reptile from carriageway

Image
Police photo of the snake discovered on the Aston Expressway
A five-foot snake caused tailbacks on a busy Birmingham commuter route on Thursday morning.

The exotic pet, believed to be a python, was spotted on the city-bound carriageway of the A38(M) Aston Expressway near to Dartmouth Circus at 9am.

One lane was temporarily closed while the slithering creature was caught and safely removed from the highway by officers from the Central Motorway Police Group.

They are now trying to find out how the roving reptile got there.

The lane closure caused further misery for motorists using the busy Expressway to get into Birmingham.

Comment: See also -

Bordeaux man-finds-2m-snake-in-his-car

Escaped python kills two kids in New Brunswick

14 Foot Brumese python found in Florida shed: Giant snake was eating local cats

Large snake discovered in Leicester garden pond, UK

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Arrow Down

India lost 50 tigers in six months, 5 in Madhya Pradesh

Bagish K Jha
The Times of India
Tue, 06 Aug 2013 14:44 UTC
Image
Indore: Even as India is striving hard to save the big cats, the country has lost fifty tigers so far this year against 72 tiger deaths in 2012.

Heading the list is Karnataka with the loss of 13 tigers till now, followed by eight in Maharashtra, seven in Uttarakhand and five in Madhya Pradesh. Out of the five tiger deaths in Madhya Pradesh, two are from Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, two from Pench Tiger Reserve and one from Katni forest division.

National Tiger Conservation Authourity (NTCA) DIG, SP Yadav on Wednesday said, every tiger in the country is under threat from poaching. Under the new protocol issued by NTCA on tiger mortality, cause of every tiger death will be considered as due to poaching, till the time state government proves it otherwise with proper evidence.

Earlier there was trend among states to hide exact cause of the death. Now rules have been changed so as to highlight the actual cause of tiger deaths. The NTCA directions will bring in more transparency in the post-mortem process.
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Bizarro Earth

Earthquake Magnitude 6.0 - S of Lakatoro, Vanuatu


US Geological Survey
Tue, 06 Aug 2013 13:01 UTC
Lakatoro Quake_060813
© USGS
Event Time
2013-08-06 17:21:58 UTC
2013-08-07 04:21:58 UTC+11:00 at epicenter

Location
16.880°S 167.401°E depth=31.2km (19.4mi)

Nearby Cities
84km (52mi) S of Lakatoro, Vanuatu
136km (85mi) NW of Port-Vila, Vanuatu
151km (94mi) S of Luganville, Vanuatu
447km (278mi) N of We, New Caledonia
591km (367mi) N of Dumbea, New Caledonia

Technical Details
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Attention

UK: Hundreds of birds die in Harrow Lodge Park after 'worst outbreak of botulism'

Lee-Ann Richards
Romford Recorder, UK
Fri, 26 Jul 2013 09:17 UTC
Hundreds of birds have died at Harrow Lodge Park after the hot weather caused a potent outbreak of botulism in the lake.

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Three cygnets were discovered dead as a result of the outbreak of botulism
Lawrence Howes, a volunteer from the Swan Sanctuary, a charity that cares for swans and waterfowl, said that it was the "worst outbreak" he had ever seen in the Hornchurch park.

He added: "It has happened before, but this one is particularly potent.

"I have never known it this bad in Harrow Lodge Park."

The volunteers at the park have been scooping up dead ducks since the beginning of the week.

The swans have also been affected by the bacteria and today the volunteers noticed that the disease had killed three cygnets.

Resident Patricia Dowsett said: "It is heart breaking.

"It is so sad to see those innocent creatures dying helplessly."

Lawrence added: "It is really terrible.

"This normally affects the ducks, but it has taken the lives of three cygnets."

Botulism is a disease in lakes produced by botulinum bacterium.

It is caused when air temperatures rise and water and oxygen levels drop.
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X

Lobster cannibalism: Crustaceans starting to eat each other, probably because of climate change

Melissa Breyer
Huffington Post
Tue, 30 Jul 2013 04:38 UTC
Image
© Getty
SumPity the young lobster. In addition to keeping a watchful eye out for the regular motley crew of predators, they now need to watch out for mom and dad as well.

Although lobsters have been known to assault and eat each other in captivity - not a surprising reaction given the conditions - marine biologists have recently observed an unprecedented degree of lobster cannibalism taking place in the wild.

Noah Oppenheim, a biologist studying the New England marine ecosystem, was the first to record the new development by setting up a camera trap using a young lobster as bait, reports The Independent.

When the same kind of experiments were conducted 20 years ago, other fish would feed on the bait; now, it's adult lobsters that are swooping in and making mincemeat of their young. After repeated experiments, scientists concluded that juvenile lobsters were 90 percent more likely to be attacked and eaten by adult lobsters than by any other type of fish.mary
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Bizarro Earth

Huge sinkhole swallows backhoe in downtown Montreal

Nelson Wyatt
The Globe and Mail, Canada
Mon, 05 Aug 2013 17:16 UTC
Montreal Sinkhole
© Christinne Muschi/ReutersA construction vehicle lies where it was swallowed by a sinkhole on Saint-Catherine Street in downtown Montreal, August 5, 2013.
A section of a downtown commercial street swallowed a backhoe on Monday as city crews were getting ready to repair a leaky water main.

The backhoe had started to chip at asphalt near the corner of Ste-Catherine and Guy streets when the ground crumbled beneath it and the heavy machine tumbled in.

The driver of the backhoe was not injured but was taken to hospital to be checked out as a precaution, city officials said.

Emilie Miskdjian, a spokeswoman for the Ville-Marie borough, said the city was alerted to the possible water leak on the weekend.

She said preliminary indications were that the leak caused the problem but more inspections needed to be done to find the exact cause.
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Bizarro Earth

Earthquakes recorded below Mt. Tongariro


Stuff.co.nz
Tue, 06 Aug 2013 00:36 UTC
Mt.Tongariro
© TVNZ
Mt Tongariro is under a watching brief after a series of small earthquakes was detected under the volcano over the past two weeks.

GNS Science duty volcanologist Michael Rosenberg said the quakes were not connected to the ongoing flurry of seismic activity centred in the Cook Strait and the tremors were no cause for ''undue alarm.''

Fewer than 10 quakes, all under magnitude 1.5, have been recorded on a handful of seismic monitors and are too small to be pinpointed.

''The reason we're paying attention is because of their location and we don't see quakes there very often,'' Rosenberg said.

The volcano erupted for the first time in a century at the Te Maari craters in August last year, followed by another eruption in November and scientists warn the craters could still erupt with little or no warning.
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