Animals
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Binoculars

Wrong place, wrong time: Tropical brown booby bird turns up at Ogden Point, Canada


CTV News
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 14:00 UTC
A brown booby, a tropical bird rarely seen in the cool climate of the Pacific Northwest, is recovering after it was found injured at Ogden Point. Jan. 31, 2018.
© Wild ARCA brown booby, a tropical bird rarely seen in the cool climate of the Pacific Northwest, is recovering after it was found injured at Ogden Point. Jan. 31, 2018.
A tropical bird rarely seen in the cool climate of the Pacific Northwest is recovering after it was found injured on Vancouver Island.

A female brown booby about two years old was found with a puncture wound in its chest at Ogden Point on Monday.

The tropical birds are typically found in California, Mexico and Hawaii and it's rare for them to be spotted here, according to BC SPCA's Wild Animal Rehabilitation centre in Metchosin, which is now caring for the injured animal.

Comment: The last 12 months has seen a notable number of these extralimital records of tropical seabirds in North America, presumably for the most part storm driven, here's a list of such reports: Bird from the tropics, the brown booby, seen for first time in New Hampshire

Wrong place, wrong time: Tropical seabird turns up at Point Pelee, Ontario

Rare sighting of frigatebird in Wausau, Wisconsin, a likely hurricane refugee

Rare red-billed tropicbird turns up in Gulf Breeze, Florida

Wrong place, wrong time: Nazca Booby from the Galapagos Islands turns up at Dana Point, Califorina

Although displacement caused by extremely inclement weather seems the most plausible explanation in most cases, the following extract from a 2015 report of a brown booby turning up near Cape Race in Canada, indicates that at least some of these seabirds had been getting lost due to other factors:
Most historic records of brown boobies north of the Florida Keys are hurricane waifs. However, about three years ago brown boobies started doing odd things. They started appearing in the northeast United States without an obvious explanation. These were not storm driven birds, but individuals flying north of their own free will. One even reached the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick. And the first for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador landed on a tour boat just off St. Anthony.


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Question

More than 200 hundred starlings fall from the sky in Draper, Utah

Elle Thomas
fox13now.com
Tue, 30 Jan 2018 13:28 UTC
Hundreds of birds fall from sky in Utah
Hundreds of birds fall from sky in Utah
More than 200 birds fell from the sky onto a Draper street Monday, leading residents to wonder what caused this mass avian accident.

"It's one of the rarest things I've ever heard of," said Sergeant Chad Carpenter with the Draper City Police Department.

"As I was driving, these birds were just falling out of the sky," said Draper resident, Lacey Brown as she was driving down the street on 300 East in Draper.

"They were all on the ground right around here and on the roadway," Brown said, "They were just falling out of the sky like leaves," she added.

But they weren't leaves, they were hundreds of small birds called starlings.


Comment: See also this similar report from the beginning of the month: At least 20 starlings found dead along road in Lyons Brook, Canada

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Megaphone

World's first talking killer whale: Wikie the orca mimics human speech saying 'hello' and 'bye bye'

Sarah Knapton
The Telegraph
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 12:12 UTC
Orca
Whales are known for their impressive communications skills which allow pods to 'talk' to each other through complex clicks and singing, even when they are 100 miles apart.

But a new experiment has shown the mammals are also apparently capable of mimicking human speech, a feat that was previously believed to be limited to primates, birds, elephants, dolphins and seals.

Scientists say they have recorded a killer whale named Wikie repeating the words 'hello' and 'bye bye', counting up to three, and even saying the name of her trainer 'Amy.'

The 14-year-old orca lives in Marineland at Antibes, France, and is the first in the world ever recorded by scientists allegedly saying human words.
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Magnify

Scientists discover million-year-old hidden 'nursery' of Hammerhead Sharks in Galapagos


teleSUR
Mon, 29 Jan 2018 00:00 UTC
hammerhead sharks
© WikipediaThe hammerhead sharks grow as long as three meters (yards) and live for up to 50 years.
"The females arrive to give birth and then leave. The young have all the food they need here and the reefs afford protection from large predators," an expert said.

A group of Ecuadorean scientists has discovered a hammerhead shark nursery where they have been born and sheltered for nearly a million years on the Galapagos Islands, the remote archipelago tucked away 1,000 kilometers off South America's Pacific coast.

"It was quite by chance that we found this natural nursery for baby hammerheads, a species that is under a high level of threat," Eduardo Espinoza, the biologist in charge of monitoring ecosystems in the Galapagos Marine Reserve, told AFP.

"It is a unique area, of great interest to conservationists."

Comment: It would be interesting to know how the scientists determined the cave has been used by the hammerheads for a million years...

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Attention

Man bitten by bull shark in Cone Bay, Western Australia

David Baker
The West Australian
Mon, 29 Jan 2018 13:38 UTC
Bull shark
Bull shark
An 18-year-old man has been flown to Perth today after he was bitten twice by a bull shark off the coast near Derby in WA's north, yesterday morning.

SharkSmart said the man was attacked by the shark at Cone Bay at about 8am on Sunday and was treated at Derby Hospital before the decision was made to transfer him to Perth.

It happened at Cone Bay Barramundi Fish Farm, where the teen had been working.

He is in a stable condition after being bitten twice on his right leg but was sent to Perth for likely surgery on damaged tendons.
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Arrow Down

Bill Gates planning to genetically engineer a 'super cow'

Matthew Loffhagen
Outer Places
Mon, 29 Jan 2018 18:31 UTC
GMO Cow
© Keith Weller/USDA
In recent years, Bill Gates has started dipping his toes into unusual pools of creativity.

The grand high emperor of Microsoft is already working on a sprawling, futuristic "smart city" to be built in the Arizona desert, but now he has a second project to devote his time to - he's going to engineer the perfect cow.

Bearing in mind his plan to build a desert city, this isn't a terrible idea - ideally, this genetically engineered bovine will be significantly more hardy than our current and inferior livestock, and will be able to produce milk at far higher temperatures.

Of course, Gates' plan isn't really aimed at creating cows to feed his technological utopia (although he probably won't mind if that's a nice side-effect). Instead, Gates is hoping that these cows will help his ongoing humanitarian work in arid parts of the world where famine and pestilence is still affecting the lives of millions.
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Attention

Dead whale washes up at Fernandina Beach, Florida

Cindy Jackson
News-Leader
Sun, 28 Jan 2018 14:32 UTC
Dead whale washes up on beach
Dead whale washes up on beach
A small, dead whale washed ashore Sunday in Fernandina Beach near the intersection of Bill Melton Road and South Fletcher Avenue and near Beach Access 40.

Representatives from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission were on the scene Sunday afternoon as were Nassau County Sheriff's Office deputies to help keep onlookers at a safe distance.

The whale was "anchored" to the shore in an attempt to keep it in place through Sunday night.

A necropsy will be performed on Monday.
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Attention

Shark attacks along US west coast nearly double in 2017 over previous year


CBS Sacramento
Sun, 28 Jan 2018 12:47 UTC
shark attack
A new report says shark attacks rose last year on the West Coast.

The Shark Research Committee says there were nine unprovoked attacks in 2017 — eight in California and one in Washington. That's up from five the year before.

Nobody died but some people were bitten.

The committee says most attacks probably involved great white sharks. In a March attack captured on video, a great white attacked a kayak in Monterey Bay, knocking the kayaker into the water.
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Cloud Lightning

Lightning bolt kills 16 cattle in Zambia


ZNBC
Fri, 26 Jan 2018 19:29 UTC
lightning
Lightning has killed 16 head of cattle in Chipili District in Luapula Province.

Chipili Town Council Chairperson Isaac Kafwimbi says the animals owned by five farmers of Mukanga Village in Chieftainess Mwenda's Chiefdom died on the spot after being struck by lightning in a communally owned kraal.

Mr Kafwimbi says the people of Chipili are still in shocked from the accident.

He says it is sad that at the time when farmers in the district are making efforts to start keeping cattle such an accident can happen.

Mr Kafwimbi has since called on government through the office of the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit to find means of helping the affected farmers.
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Attention

North Atlantic right whale discovered dead off Virginia coast, 1st in 2018

Alexander Quon
Global News
Thu, 25 Jan 2018 12:43 UTC
At least 18 North Atlantic right whales have now died in Canadian and U.S. last year and this winter.
© Center for Coastal Studies/NOAAAt least 18 North Atlantic right whales have now died in Canadian and U.S. last year and this winter.
Another North Atlantic right whale has been found dead, the first to be recorded in 2018 and the 18th since last year.

The whale was reportedly found off the coast of Virginia on Jan. 22.

Jennifer Goebel, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), confirmed the information to Global News on Thursday.

According to NOAA, the remains of the whale appeared to be wrapped in a fishing line.

Based on past experience with entangled whales the NOAA believe the whale was alive and swimming when it encountered the line.
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