Animals
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Attention

Latest round of mass animal die-offs around the planet last week


The Big Wobble
Fri, 30 Jun 2017 13:10 UTC
Thousands of dead fish in Turkey.
Thousands of dead fish in Turkey.
28th June 2017 Libtard Digital reported- Thousands of dead fish found in a river in Copan, Honduras

Villagers from the community of Azacualpa, La Union, Copán, sent images showing that thousands of fish have been found dead in the Lara River due to contamination of mining activities of Minerales de Occidente (MINOSA), a subsidiary of mining company Aura Minerals ).

27th June 2017 2WRGZ.com reports - Dozens of dead seaguls found washed up on a beach in Buffalo, America

BUFFALO, NY - It was an unpleasant sight Tuesday, as a number of dead seagulls were found washed ashore Gallagher Beach in Buffalo.

27th June 2017 El Dia De Cordoba reports - 4.5 TONS of fish dead due to pollution in the Guadalquivir river in Spain.
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Binoculars

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


CBC News
Fri, 30 Jun 2017 19:14 UTC
The tropical magnificent frigatebird made a rare appearance at Point Pelee, Ont. on Thursday afternoon.
© Kory RenaudThe tropical magnificent frigatebird made a rare appearance at Point Pelee, Ont. on Thursday afternoon.
Joan Walker was at her kitchen table talking to her mother when she shrieked at the rare sight of a massive tropical bird that has only been spotted a handful of times in Ontario.

The magnificent frigatebird, with its six-foot wide wing span, caught her eye because it was being harassed by a dozen or so gulls as it soared outside her home on Pelee Drive on Thursday afternoon.

She immediately jumped from her chair and ran next door to her family's nature store to tell her husband Mike Malone. He quickly snapped several photos to verify the sighting for the rest of the bird-watching world.

"Oh my God, it's a frigatebird," Walker recalled yelling into the phone. "I went running out of the house."
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Question

Wild ducks in Romania are caught eating small birds for the first time

Shivali Best
Daily Mail
Fri, 30 Jun 2017 15:39 UTC
Researchers have captured images of mallard ducks attacking and eating small birds – a behaviour that has never been seen before
Researchers have captured images of mallard ducks attacking and eating small birds – a behaviour that has never been seen before
They're usually thought of as placid creatures, happy to accept pieces of bread thrown into rivers by willing passers-by.

But a shocking new study paints ducks in a very different light.

Researchers have captured images of mallard ducks attacking and eating small birds - a behaviour that has never been seen before.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge caught the bizarre behaviour on camera, while filming mallard ducks on a reservoir in Romania.

Mallards normally eat seeds, acorns, berries, plants and insects, and occasionally eat small fish.

But this is the first time they have ever been seen eating other birds.
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Attention

Two killed by elephant in West Bengal, India; 108 such deaths across the state in 2016


The Indian Express
Tue, 27 Jun 2017 13:00 UTC
Charging elephant
© GettyCharging elephant
Two persons died and one sustained injuries when a wild elephant went on a rampage at Konamali village in Cooch Behar on Monday morning. "Two people were attacked by a wild elephant. They both died," said Cooch Behar SP Anup Jaiswal. The deceased have been identified as Upen Burman (66) and Mahindranath Rai (73). Sources in the police said both were on way to their fields when they were attacked by the elephant. "Burman was the first one to be attacked, when he tried to chase the elephant. He died on the spot. Then the elephant attacked Rai. Like Burman, he too was flung in the air and died at the spot," said a source.

Another person, Sanjay Rai, who was present nearby, had a narrow escape as the elephant got distracted by the sound of another animal and moved away, he added. "Soon after, villagers, police personnel and forest officials rushed to the spot. The injured person was taken to Cooch Behar MJN Hospital. He is stated to be stable." The elephant was heading towards the jungles of Alipurduar, said eyewitnesses.

Comment: 108 fatalities due to elephant attacks in just one state of India over a year does seem extremely high given the fact that some other sources claim that elephants kill a total of around 500 or 600 people annually across the world.

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Wolf

Man mauled to death by two pit bulls terriers in Cape Town, South Africa

Genevieve Serra
IOL
Fri, 30 Jun 2017 12:50 UTC
Two pit bulls killed a man delivering newspapers in Kalksteenfontein.
© Leon KnipeTwo pit bulls killed a man delivering newspapers in Kalksteenfontein.
A 57-year-old Cape Flats man has been killed in a savage attack by two pit bulls.

Ironically, the victim was delivering newspapers, which had a front page story about a pit bull attack in another neighbourhood last week.

Police and the Cape of Good Hope SPCA were called to Uintjie Street in Kalksteenfontein just after 11am on Thursday where they found the bloody body of the man.

Chunks of flesh of the man's neck and arm were ripped off, and one of his ears were missing.

Neighbours say the man, only identified as Willie from Bonteheuwel, had been delivering the Athlone News when the dogs attacked him.
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Attention

Hundreds of nutria wash ashore on beach in Hancock County, Mississippi

Mike Lacy
fox8live.com
Fri, 23 Jun 2017 12:38 UTC
Officials with the county road department estimate there are around 300 dead rodents on the beach
© WLOXOfficials with the county road department estimate there are around 300 dead rodents on the beach.
Tropical Storm Cindy washed more than just seaweed and drift wood onto the beach in Hancock County. Hundreds of dead nutria litter the beach.

County officials and Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality officials are on the scene assessing the problem. Officials with the county road department estimate there are around 300 dead rodents on the beach.

The nutria kill is along the shoreline in Waveland and Claremont Harbor. We don't know for sure how many are on the shore, but officials believe more will wash up with the tide.
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Attention

Increased great white shark sightings off Cape Cod

Kelly McCarthy
ABC News
Wed, 28 Jun 2017 19:08 UTC
Great white shark
Great white shark
An influx of great white shark sightings has residents and tourists worried about potential encounters in the water, especially during the heart of summer.

Senior Fisheries Biologist Dr. Greg Skomal told ABC News the increase in the great white shark population off the Massachusetts coastline is correlated to the gray seal population and that numbers are expected to rise even further.

"We've been studying sharks off the coast of Massachusetts for 30 years and our work with white sharks off Cape Cod is relatively recent," Dr. Skomal said on "Good Morning America." "The numbers we're seeing on a relative scale are increasing, in 2014 we counted 80 individuals over the course of the summer and just last summer that went up to about 147. So there is a general increasing trend as more and more sharks recruit to the area."

This season at least six great white shark sightings have already been reported, including a recent sighting off Wellfleet on May 9.
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Ambulance

Snake bites, though rare, are on the rise in US

Susan Scutti
CNN
Thu, 29 Jun 2017 18:35 UTC
Eastern Cottonmouth
Meg Trammell, age 11, had just eaten suppera fter her first day of school at Advent Episcopal School in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. "My mom and I decided to take the dogs on a walk," recalled Meg, now 12 years old, as she described the late mid-August evening in the suburbs of Birmingham. "As we were walking out, I heard something jingle in the door, so I turned around and it was my mother's car keys from when we took in the groceries," said Meg. Ignoring the keys, she continued down the steps, pulled by dogs eager for a romp in the yard.

The front stoop is just two steps leading down from the front door, said her mother Suzanne Scott-Trammell. Azalea bushes bookend the steps of the house, which sits on a lawn in front of a creek that runs through the town, home to 33,000.

"I felt something sting my toe," said Meg, who was wearing sandals at the time. "I immediately started crying. I thought: 'A snake bit me and I'm gonna die!'"
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Gift 3

Unique pink grasshopper seen in the Netherlands

Janene Pieters
NL Times
Thu, 29 Jun 2017 12:30 UTC
Pink grasshopper
© Natuurmonument/TwitterPink locust spotted in Oisterwijk, 27 Jun 2017.
Forester Wim Hoogstraaten from Oisterwijk almost couldn't believe his eyes when he spotted a bright pink grasshopper at the visitors' center of Natuurmonumenten in Oisterwijk on Tuesday. Luckily he got over his shock quickly enough to snap a picture.

Forester Frans Kapteijns describes the pink grasshopper as a "very special species", and very rare in the province of Noord-Brabant. "You mostly see them in limestone areas", he said to Omroep Brabant.

According to Natuurmonumenten, a nature conservation organization in the Netherlands, the pink color is very rare. The phenomenon is called erythrism, and is comparable to albinism in humans.
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Ambulance

Elephant family of four killed after being electrocuted by low-hanging wires surrounding coffee plantation

Richard Hartley-Parkinson
Metro UK
Thu, 29 Jun 2017 15:55 UTC
dead elephants
© SWNSFour elephants died immediately when they touched the electric fence
These four elephants were electrocuted when they wandered into low-hanging wires surrounding a coffee farm.

The family - two adults and two juveniles - died instantly when they struck the tight wire near the plantation in the Kodagu district of south Indian state of Karnataka.

It comes after two other elephants died in similar circumstances earlier this month.
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