Welcome to Sott.net
Wed, 27 Oct 2021
The World for People who Think

Earth Changes
Map

Snow Globe

Many bluebirds couldn't survive this cold spring in Loveland, Colorado

Kevin J. Cook
reporterherald.com
Wed, 08 May 2013 05:07 UTC
Image

Eastern Bluebird

The phone rang. Again.

I didn't want to answer it. The two previous calls were from people who had found dying bluebirds in their yards. They wanted to help, but they needed someone to help them help the birds.

Yesterday, the call was from someone who had found a dead bluebird. Three emails about bluebirds also came. One person had found a dozen dead or dying bluebirds in her yard. Another person recognized me at the coffee shop and wanted to relate yet another woeful bluebird tale.

The loss of a bluebird counts as nothing more than just one of those life and death things that happen in nature. But so much loss at once is stunning.

People everywhere love bluebirds, but Coloradans have special reason to esteem them.

The bluebirds are members of the thrush family. Considering we also have some blue warblers, blue buntings and blue jays the reality becomes obvious: all blue birds are not bluebirds. Just three species can claim the name "bluebird" and they are relatives of the robins, solitaires and thrushes.
      Read More...
Arrow Down

Police tape off large sinkhole in Winnipeg's north end


CBC News
Sun, 12 May 2013 17:06 UTC
large sinkhole in Winnipeg
© CBC
A large sinkhole in Winnipeg's north end has been taped off by police.
Winnipeg police have blocked a large sinkhole at an intersection in the city's north end Sunday.

Officers were called to Airlies Street and Ashbury Bay at about 1 p.m.

City crews are currently on scene assessing the crater. The city said the sinkhole will be repaired Monday.

Homes in the area will not have water Monday, so crews can test for a possible leak.
      Read More...
Igloo

Ice plows into Northern Minnesota lake homes

Cassie Hart
KSTP.com
Sat, 11 May 2013 14:13 UTC

Ice outs are still happening on lakes in northern Minnesota because of our cold and snowy spring.

Now, homes along the shore of Mille Lacs Lake are getting damaged because the ice is moving like a glacier, and pushing up against the homes.

In a video sent to us by KSTP viewer, Darla Johnson, you can see the ice making its charge onto shore. Then in a matter of minutes the wind pushes the ice about 15 feet from the shore to the doors of a home.
      Read More...
Heart - Black

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service launches program to kill owls - Yes, I said owls

Bill Walker
Bedford-nh.patch.com
Sun, 12 May 2013 15:40 UTC
Government agency gets license to kill...owls

Image
Usually we have to prioritize, and keep track of the big issues... which in politics means we don't deal with anything less than a trillion dollars. Bank bailouts, the various new and old undeclared wars, the Federal Reserve printing money to buy our own Treasury bonds; that sort of thing.

But today I'm going to look at the US government's approach to a small thing: an owl. Namely, the Barred Owl, which has through hard work, saving and investment (in-nestment?), managed to extend its range even in this recession. The owl is a great neighbor to humankind and a boon to our parks and forests, spending most of its time hunting and destroying rodents that carry bubonic plague fleas. It is a beautiful predator with a haunting, tourist-attracting call. So naturally, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (a bureau of the DOI) has started a million-dollar program to... terminate the owls and their owlets without mercy.

Yes, your taxes are even now paying for empty-eyed Department of the Interior owlinators to go from nest to nest with 12-gauge shotguns and copies of Peterson's Field Guide to the Birds, with the Barred Owl picture highlighted like Sarah Connor's name in an LA phone book. Night vision scopes, thermal imaging, and Predator drones (well, in this case, anti-predator drones) give the owls little chance. The first stage of the plan is to blast about 9,000 owls and their families into small bloody pieces of fluffy down, but the program is open-ended. Listen, and understand: The Department of the Interior is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until those owls are dead!
      Read More...
Arrow Down

'Slow-motion disaster': California houses sinking into the ground

Tracie Cone
The Associated Press
Sat, 11 May 2013 06:47 UTC
Image
© Rich Pedroncelli / AP
Robin and Scott Spivey walk past the wreckage of their Tudor-style dream home on Monday. They had to abandon it when the ground gave way causing it to drop 10 feet below the street in Lakeport, Calif. Officials believe that water that has bubbled to the surface is playing a role in the collapse of the hillside subdivision, forcing the evacuation of eight homes and endangering another 10.
Scott and Robin Spivey had a sinking feeling that something was wrong with their home when cracks began snaking across their walls in March.

The cracks soon turned into gaping fractures, and within two weeks their 600-square-foot garage broke from the house and the entire property - manicured lawn and all - dropped 10 feet below the street.

It wasn't long before the houses on both sides collapsed as the ground gave way in the Spivey's neighborhood in Lake County, about 100 miles north of San Francisco.

"We want to know what is going on here," said Scott Spivey, a former city building inspector who lived in his four-bedroom, Tudor-style dream home for 11 years.
      Read More...
Igloo

Massive wall of ice destroys Canadian lakeside homes


CBC News
Fri, 10 May 2013 10:10 UTC
Residents 'devastated' after ice from Dauphin Lake pushed ashore

A local state of emergency has been declared in a western Manitoba municipality after homes in Ochre Beach were destroyed and seriously damaged by a wave of lake ice.

Area officials told CBC News the wind pushed built-up ice off Dauphin Lake on Friday evening and caused it to pile up in the community, located on the lake's southern shore.

The piles of ice, which were more than nine metres tall in some cases, destroyed at least six homes and cottages, according to the Rural Municipality of Ochre River.

Another 14 homes suffered extensive damage, with some structures knocked off their foundations.

Clayton Watts, Ochre River's deputy reeve, said it's a miracle no one was hurt.

      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Wildlife deaths in Indian River Lagoon, Florida puzzle biologists

Greg Pallone
CFNews13
Wed, 08 May 2013 03:08 UTC
Melbourne -- The search for answers presses on about why high-profile wildlife are dying in the Indian River Lagoon.

"It's one thing to die a quick death," said Megan Stolen from Hubbs SeaWorld Research Institute. "It's another to sort of waste away."

That's why there's a sense of urgency for biologists, who are trying to figure out why 30 dead dolphins have turned up since the beginning of the year in the Indian River Lagoon of Brevard County.

"We do see a few patterns in that the dolphins that we have found in the lagoon are very skinny, but aside from that, we don't see anything that really connects them," Stolen said.

Most of them are decomposed, limiting on what researchers can learn.

Many of the dolphins have been found with near-empty stomachs.

"We really don't know what they've been eating, that takes a whole new level of scientific inquiry," Stolen said.

Meanwhile, researchers are looking for a possible connection to other wildlife turning up dead in the lagoon.

Approximately 100 manatees have died since July 2012 due to a common, but unknown cause.
      Read More...
Cloud Lightning

Tropical cyclone threatens Myanmar refugee camps

Thomas Fuller
The New York Times
Sat, 11 May 2013 00:00 UTC
Image
Of the more than 130,000 people forced to flee their homes in rioting between Buddhists and Muslims over the last year in western Myanmar, around half are living in low-lying camps near the sea, the United Nations says.

Human rights organizations have issued repeated warnings that the displaced people are at risk of disease and hunger during the rainy season, which begins this month and continues until around September.

"We're definitely very concerned," said Vivian Tan, a spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee agency. "We are working around the clock, trying to get as many people out of low-lying areas and into decent shelters."

Projections on Saturday by the United States Navy Marine Meteorology Division estimated that the cyclone would reach land around Wednesday. According to the same calculations, the center of the storm will be just south of Chittagong, a major city in Bangladesh, and rain and strong winds would also hit areas in Rakhine State in Myanmar, where the camps are.

Although the storm could change direction or lessen in intensity, aid groups say even heavy rains would create very difficult conditions for the displaced families, who are camped out in muddy fields vulnerable to tidal surges.

Myanmar is prone to violent tropical storms. A cyclone in 2008 killed more than 150,000 people in the country's Irrawaddy River delta. Another storm in 2010 in western Myanmar, in roughly the same areas as those under threat now, displaced tens of thousands and killed more than 100.
      Read More...
Butterfly

Plague of locusts blankets Madagascar

Michael Slezak
New Scientist
Fri, 10 May 2013 17:45 UTC
Image
© Bilal Tarabey/AFP/Getty
A locust plague of epic size is devastating the island nation of Madagascar, threatening the lives of 13 million people already on the brink of famine.

Billions of locusts are destroying crops and grazing lands across half the country. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) expects the plague to get worse, with two-thirds of the country likely to be affected by September.

The FAO says $22 million is needed by the end of this month to control the plague. And with each female locust laying up to 180 eggs, another $19 million will be needed to stop the plague recurring.

"We know from experience that this plague will require three years of anti-locust campaigns," says Annie Monard, who coordinates the FAO's locust response.
      Read More...
Question

'Unbearable' smell in Quincy a mystery

Jack Encarnacao
The Patriot Ledger
Thu, 09 May 2013 16:57 UTC
Image
Living so close the ocean, residents at The Moorings at Squantum Gardens are used to the full spectrum of sea scents wafting over to their building.

"Maybe occasionally you get bad smells, but it was never this constant, six weeks of this now," said Don Duggan, who's lived in the apartment community for seniors since it opened in 2007. "You can smell it walking the hallway."

The mysterious odor - a potent mix of sulfur and rotten eggs - hits the nose at the intersection of Quincy Shore Drive and East Squantum Street. The city has hired chemists from UMass Boston to test water samples for the presence of any bacteria that could contain clues about the smell's origin.

"The city immediately took bacteria samples to see if it was sewage; those tests came back negative," city spokesman Christopher Walker said. "But we're still waiting to determine exactly what it is."

Walker said preliminary indications are that the smell is linked to a naturally-occurring phenomenon, perhaps red algae.

"Unfortunately, it appears to be something at this point that's occurring in nature and doesn't have an immediate remedy, other than waiting for nature to run its course," he said.
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts