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Thu, 16 Sep 2021
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Biohazard

Sea lions are dying from a mysterious cancer in California - the culprits? Herpes and DDT

Rosanna Xia
L A Times
Sun, 31 Jan 2021 20:14 UTC
Barbie Halaska, right, necropsy manager at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, and lab assistant Jackie Isbell measure a California sea lion that was euthanized due to untreatable cancer.
© Bill Hunnewell / Marine Mammal Center
Barbie Halaska, right, necropsy manager at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, and lab assistant Jackie Isbell measure a California sea lion that was euthanized due to untreatable cancer.
On a former Cold War missile base perched high above the Golden Gate Bridge, in what is now the largest marine mammal hospital in the world, Frances Gulland still remembers the shock she felt when she first started working here as a veterinarian 26 years ago.

A male sea lion had washed ashore in severe pain. His hind flippers were swollen, his lymph nodes riddled with tumors. Cancer had taken over his kidneys and turned his spine to mush. First responders at the Marine Mammal Center told Gulland they saw this in sea lions all the time.

"Wildlife should not be getting cancer like this, that's crazy!" said Gulland, who was new to California. "How can that be?"

Now, after two decades of study, an all-star team of marine mammal pathologists, virology experts, chemists and geneticists say they've connected two surprising culprits: Herpes and toxic chemicals, like DDT and PCBs, that poisoned the California coast decades ago.
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Doberman

Pack of 5 stray dogs kill young boy in Hyderabad, India


Sakshi.com
Sun, 31 Jan 2021 12:13 UTC
dog attack
In a shocking incident, a nine year old boy was killed when stray dogs attacked him. The incident took place in Bahadurpura, Hyderabad. The deceased was identified as Md Ayaan. According to the reports, he was attacked by a group of five stray dogs.

A. Narsimha Rao, sub-inspector, Bahadurpura police station speaking to TOI said that, "While the rest of the children managed to escape from the spot, Ayaan could not. The dogs chased him around for a while before attacking him. The boy was injured and died on the spot."

It is said that Ayaan had gone to play along with his friends on Saturday evening. He didn't return home after a very long time and he was found dead when his parents started searching for him.
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Cow Skull

More than 700 pelicans found dead in Senegal world heritage site


The Guardian
Sat, 30 Jan 2021 10:38 UTC
Rangers are investigating mystery deaths at Djoudj bird sanctuary, a migratory pitstop for hundreds of bird species
Pelicans
© Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images
Senegal authorities are incinerating the dead pelicans and have closed Djoudj bird sanctuary while they investigate.
Seven hundred and fifty pelicans have been found dead in a Unesco world heritage site in northern Senegal that provides refuge for millions of migratory birds, the country's parks director has said.

Rangers found the pelicans on Saturday in the Djoudj bird sanctuary, a remote pocket of wetland near the border with Mauritania and a resting place for birds that cross the Sahara into west Africa each year.

Comment: See also:

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Doberman

Deputy mayor found dead, bitten by her two pet rottweilers in southern France

Jack Dutton
Newsweek
Thu, 28 Jan 2021 11:49 UTC
dog attack
The deputy mayor of a department in southern France has been found dead in her yard, next to two of her dogs, who appeared to have bitten her, according to reports.

Sandra Vincente, 38, who was elected mayor of the village of Sénouillac in 2014, in the Tarn department, was found in her yard by her partner on Tuesday. She was found next her two Rottweilers, who were found with bloody mouths. Vincente is disabled and had been using a wheelchair for 10 years. Her family has resided in the village for several generations, according to La Depeche.

The public prosecutor in Albi, the capital of Tarn, is investigating the incident and an autopsy has been ordered.
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Black Cat

Man survives 'predatory' cougar attack in western Canada by fighting back, officers say

Mark Price
The Sacramento Bee
Tue, 26 Jan 2021 15:19 UTC
A rare cougar attack on a human has been reported in an Soo Valley north of Vancouver. The species is also known as a mountain lion and puma.
© WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE
A rare cougar attack on a human has been reported in an Soo Valley north of Vancouver. The species is also known as a mountain lion and puma.
The cougar attack on a man reported Monday afternoon in the Soo Valley north of Vancouver, Canada, "was predatory in nature," officials say.

The victim is a 69-year-old man, who suffered major injuries while fighting off the cougar, officials said. His identity has not been released.

Canada's Conservation Officer Service says the mauling happened around 3:30 p.m. Monday, near the British Columbia community of Whistler. That's about 220 miles north of Seattle.

"The man was mauled by a cougar and suffered major injuries to his face and hand," the Conservation Officer Service wrote on Facebook. "He was taken to (a) hospital via ambulance and is reportedly in stable condition."
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Attention

Nearly 400 Gray Whales have died off the west coast since 2019

Alex Fox
Smithsonian Magazine
Wed, 27 Jan 2021 10:11 UTC
A gray whale washed ashore on the beach of the Sandlake Recreation Area north of Pacific City on April 18, 2020.
© Tillamook County Sheriff's Office
A gray whale washed ashore on the beach of the Sandlake Recreation Area north of Pacific City on April 18, 2020.
Scientists say the die-off, which is entering its third year, is likely due to a scarcity of food in the animals' cold water feeding grounds

Reports of emaciated gray whales have started to come in as the whales arrive at their breeding grounds off of Baja California, Mexico. If the trend continues this will be the third hard year in a row for the North Pacific gray whale population, with hundreds turning up dead in what scientists are calling an unusual mortality event, reports Isaac Schultz for Gizmodo.

According to new research published this week in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, the die-off began in January 2019 and as of the paper's publication, the official death toll stood at 378. The species' last unusual mortality event occurred around the year 2000 and claimed the lives of some 600 whales, according to Gizmodo.

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Attention

4 Gray's beaked whales strand on Ruakākā Beach, New Zealand - one dies


New Zealand Herald
Tue, 26 Jan 2021 13:37 UTC
One of the four Gray's beaked whales that got stranded on Ruakākā Beach couldn't swim back out to sea and died.
© Project Jonah
One of the four Gray's beaked whales that got stranded on Ruakākā Beach couldn't swim back out to sea and died.
Flensing of a Gray's beaked whale that died on Northland's Ruakākā Beach will begin this afternoon under the supervision of the local hāpu.

Locals found four Gray's beaked whales stranded on the beach on Tuesday evening and called Project Jonah- an environmental organisation dedicated to the protection of whales, dolphins and seals.

Three whales were refloated and helped back out to sea while one kept turning around and coming to the shallows.

Several locally-trained medics who volunteer for Project Jonah went down to the beach after the three whales swam back out to sea to help those that worked on the fourth whale.
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Attention

Over 100 gannets found dead after high tides believed to have pummelled breeding colony in New Zealand, 10-metre swells

Sharnae Hope
Stuff
Mon, 25 Jan 2021 14:24 UTC
A Kāwhia local reported that 134 dead birds had washed ashore on the coastline, and most of them were juveniles.

A Kāwhia local reported that 134 dead birds had washed ashore on the coastline, and most of them were juveniles.
More than 100 dead birds were found along the King Country coastline, near a biodiversity hotspot.

A Kāwhia local reported 134 dead birds had washed ashore between Kāwhai Ocean Beach and Aotea Harbour on Saturday.

Ōtorohanga District Council and the Department of Conservation were notified, and it's believed high tides sweeping over a breeding colony on nearby Gannet Island were to blame.

The dead birds were initially mistaken as albatrosses, then identified as gannets by DOC - with 117 of them juvenile gannets, known as gugas.
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Snowflake Cold

Migratory birds wintering in northern Iran increased by 30% due to severe, premature cold in Siberia


Tehran Times
Mon, 25 Jan 2021 11:10 UTC
The population of migratory birds took flight

The population of migratory birds took flight to spend the cold season in the northern province of Mazandaran increased by 30 percent since the beginning of winter (December 21, 2020) compared to the same period last year, head of wildlife affairs at the provincial department of environment (DOE) has said.
The annual census for migratory birds in Iran begins in the middle of the Iranian calendar month of Dey (December 22- January 20) and ends in the middle of the month of Bahman (January 21- February 19), which will be a 1-month period since January 1 to 31.

The reason for the increase in the migration of wintering birds this year is due to the severe and premature cold in Siberia, Korous Rabiei stated, IRNA reported on Monday.

According to the wintering census last year, 90 species of migratory birds with a population of over 500,000 migrated to the three wetlands of Miankaleh, Sorkhrud, and Azbaran, reservoirs and protected areas of the province, which is predicted to reach up to 700,000 this [Iranian calendar] year, he explained.

He went on to say that the largest increase in the migratory birds' population is related to the whooper swan, whose number increased about 10 times compared to the same period last year, from 500 to about 5,000.
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Info

How many early human species existed on Earth?

Benjamin Plackett
Live Science
Sun, 24 Jan 2021 19:44 UTC
The skulls of various human species
© Shutterstock
The skulls of various human species.
We Homo sapiens didn't used to be alone. Long ago, there was a lot more human diversity; Homo sapiens lived alongside an estimated eight now-extinct species of human about 300,000 years ago. As recently as 15,000 years ago, we were sharing caves with another human species known as the Denisovans. And fossilized remains indicate an even higher number of early human species once populated Earth before our species came along.

"We have one human species right now, and historically, that's really weird," said Nick Longrich, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. "Not that far back, we weren't that special, but now we're the only ones left."

So, how many early human species were there?

When it comes to figuring out exactly how many distinct species of humans existed, it gets complicated pretty quickly, especially because researchers keep unearthing new fossils that end up being totally separate and previously unknown species.

"The number is mounting, and it'll vary depending on whom you talk to," said John Stewart, an evolutionary paleoecologist at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom. Some researchers argue that the species known as Homo erectus is in fact made up of several different species, including Homo georgicus and Homo ergaster.

"It's all about the definition of a species and the degree to which you accept variation within a species," Stewart told Live Science. "It can become a slightly irritating and pedantic discussion, because everyone wants an answer. But the truth is that it really does depend."

Join us on a journey through human history and explore how evolution and ingenuity shaped us. From the first branches of the Homo family tree to the astonishing achievements our species are capable of today, "The Story of Humans" will reveal how harnessing fire and crafting tools shaped our future, how we triumphed over our Neanderthal relatives, how the invention of agriculture changed history and how the human brain developed.
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