Earth ChangesS


Alarm Clock

US: Hundreds of dead blackbirds found in Louisiana

Russell Jones
WBRZ.com
Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:18 UTC
dead birds
© Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries
Labarre - Around 500 dead blackbirds and starlings have been found in Pointe Coupee Parish, according to state wildlife officials. The birds were spotted lying in roads and ditches near Labarre Elementary School. The community is between Morganza and New Roads on Highway 10.

Scientists from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries have been sent out to collect samples, which will be sent for testing to the University of Georgia and National Wildlife Center in Wisconsin.

This comes after about 5,000 blackbirds and swallows were found dead around Beebe, Ark. on New Year's Eve. Dr. Jim LaCour with LDWF said he's not sure the two incidents are connected.

"It's not common, (but) we do see a few die-offs for various reasons," said LaCour. "Yes, we need to look into it, we need to be a little alarmed, but it's not out of the scope of things to have a die-off."
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Info

Auroras and Meteors


SpaceWeather
Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:23 UTC
"Wow!" exclaims Fredrik Broms of Kvaløya, Norway. "Tonight Earth's upper atmosphere got hit full force both by the solar wind, producing some amazing coronas in purple and green, and every now and then by a fragment from shattered comet 2003 EH1, source of the Quadrantid meteor shower." He took this picture using his Nikon D3:

Aurora and Meteor
© Fredrik Broms
"Bitter cold weather here in northern Norway made the photo-session a bit shorter than I hoped--indeed, my lens was completely covered in ice crystals--but I managed to catch some of the beauty of this cold night," says Broms.

Browse the links below for more snapshots of the first auroras and the first meteor shower of the New Year.
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Eye 2

Australian floods: Residents facing plague of deadly snakes as waters rise

Bonnie Malkin
The Telegraph
Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:08 UTC
Image
© EPAAn aerial image showing properties hit by floodwaters in Emerald, Queensland
Australians whose homes have been inundated with floodwater in the state of Queensland are now facing the threat of deadly snakes as the reptiles move into dry buildings to avoid the rising waters.

Extra snakebite antivenom, including brown snake antivenom, has been airlifted into the city of Rockhampton, one of the worst-hit parts of the state.

Health officials have warned residents to be on the look out for dangerous snakes, spiders and even crocodiles that have been forced out of their natural habitats and onto higher ground by the natural disaster.

Barry Moessinger, who lives in a low-lying part of Rockhampton, said he had spotted about 15 snakes each day over the past week.

"There's heaps of them," he told the Australian newspaper.

"We had a plague of mice, a lot of frogs, so we knew the snakes would come."
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Black Cat

Sensitivity to Change: Even Healthy Cats Act Sick When Their Routine Is Disrupted


The Ohio State University
Mon, 03 Jan 2011 15:29 UTC
Image
© UnknownTony Buffington
A cat regularly vomiting hairballs or refusing to eat probably isn't being finicky or otherwise "cat-like," despite what conventional wisdom might say. There is a good chance that the cat is acting sick because of the stress caused by changes in its environment, new research suggests.

Healthy cats were just as likely as chronically ill cats to refuse food, vomit frequently and leave waste outside their litter box in response to changes in their routine, according to the Ohio State University study. Veterinary clinicians refer to these acts as sickness behaviors.

The researchers documented sickness behaviors in healthy cats and in cats with feline interstitial cystitis, a chronic illness characterized by recurring discomfort or pain in the bladder and often both an urgent and frequent need to urinate.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Tornado Season, Watches, and Warnings


The Weather Channel
Mon, 03 Jan 2011 15:01 UTC
Image
© The University of OklahomaTornado Incidence Map
In the United States, "tornado season" generally is in the spring when tornadoes are more prevalent from April through July, with May and June being the peak months. But like thunderstorms, tornadoes can form any time of the year.

The area in which tornadoes are most prevalent is known as "tornado alley," typically defined the region from Texas north to Nebraska. But, of course, tornadoes can and do occur in every state in the country.

For accurate and timely storm updates in your area, watch The Weather Channel, check for severe weather alerts, listen to NOAA Weather Radio, or get free severe weather alerts on your phone and in your email from The Weather Channel.
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Bizarro Earth

India: 30 Cattle Deaths Spark Panic in Velur, Mudhur


The Deccan Chronicle
Sun, 02 Jan 2011 15:10 UTC
The mysterious death of more than 30 heads of cattle in Velur and Mudhur panchayats in Arakkonam taluk in the last week has sparked panic among farmers in the locality. Though an anthrax attack rumoured to have caused the death of the animals in the two panchayats, officials attached to the department of animal husbandry have denied this.

Milch animals, including goats and cows, in Velur, Velurpettai, Mudhur and its hamlets have been dying in quick succession over the last 10-15 days. The total deaths livestock due to the mysterious disease has crossed 30, according to the villagers. Claiming that 24 cows and 11 goats had died in Velur and Mudhur panchayats in the last one-and-a-half weeks, they said 16 cows had died in Veeranarayanapuram village recently.

The animals had stopped consuming fodder and their stomachs had started to bloat two days before the death. They did not move and were found frothing at the mouth just hours before the death, said the villagers. The sudden death of the animals has left farmers, who depend on them for their livelihood, worried. With the cause of death still remaining a mystery, the farmers are clueless on how to protect their animals.
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Radar

Naked Bodies and a New Messiah: Green Groups Try to Sex Up Climate Change

Axel Bojanowski
Spiegel
Mon, 03 Jan 2011 14:06 UTC
Image
© Deutsche Presse-Agentur
The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere keeps going up and up, but public interest in climate change is sinking. Environmentalists are trying to come up with new ways to make the issue sexy. But shock tactics can backfire all too easily.

Climate change used to make headlines. But these days the issue appears to have largely fallen off the radar.

World leaders recently negotiated a new climate agreement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, but public interest in the issue was limited. It was a marked contrast to the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, which had been declared of historic importance in the runup to the meeting, only to then fail spectacularly. The theft of e-mails from the University of East Anglia had badly damaged the image of climate research shortly before the summit.
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Question

A Lot of Birds and Fish Found Dead in Arkansas; 5 Other Animal Die-Offs

Torie Bosch
AOL News
Mon, 03 Jan 2011 13:55 UTC
Image
© Unknown
First, more than 1,000 dead birds fell out of the sky in Arkansas. Then, an estimated 100,000 fish washed up dead on the shore of the Arkansas River.

We don't know what exactly caused the bird and fish die-offs. But we do know that usually, these seemingly mysterious animal die-offs can be explained after science, zoology and environmental experts take a closer look.

Surge Desk found five other examples of similar die-offs.
  1. The disappearance of the honeybee.

    When an estimated 20 percent to 40 percent of the U.S. honeybee colonies began disappearing in 2006, environmentalists were alarmed. After all, the honeybee is a pivotal part of the North American ecosystem, pollinating many of our agricultural products.

    Status: Solved -- maybe.
    In late 2010, a team of military scientists and bee experts announced that they had identified the possible culprit behind the bee disappearance: a fungus combining with a virus. But not everybody accepts this explanation. Other proposed causes include pesticides, climate change, weakened immune systems and malnutrition.
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Hourglass

Inside a flooded Australian home


BBC News
Mon, 03 Jan 2011 12:37 UTC
Military aircraft are flying supplies into the Australian city of Rockhampton, where rising flood waters have cut off all but one access route.

Waters have been gradually submerging parts of the city.

More than 20 towns in Queensland have been cut off or flooded across an area larger than France and Germany, with more than 200,000 people affected.

Authorities have now confirmed three deaths caused by flood waters in the past few days.

Alex Finlayson is an English teacher from Emerald in Queensland. He has finally been allowed to return to his flood-damaged home.

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Fish

Penguins Starve to Death on New Zealand Beaches as La Nina Affects Nation

Phoebe Sedgman
Bloomberg
Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:03 UTC
Penguin
© Unknown

Large numbers of penguins and other seabirds are dying of starvation on New Zealand beaches because of a La Nina climate pattern affecting the nation this year, the government said.

Dead birds have started washing up on the nation's North Island after calmer seas made it harder for them to find food, Department of Conservation vet Kate McInnes said in a statement. There could be thousands of deaths over the summer due to the weather event, the statement said.

The bird deaths are the latest natural shocks in New Zealand to be blamed on environmental factors. Scientists said that a bacterial disease that started spreading through kiwifruit orchards in November was likely awakened by weather conditions. Earlier this month, the government said that Pacific oysters in the North Island were being killed by a herpes virus triggered by warmer sea temperatures.
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