Animals
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Bizarro Earth

Signs and Portents: Two-headed porpoise found off Netherlands coast for the first time ever

Georgina Hines
New Scientist
Wed, 14 Jun 2017 19:13 UTC
two-headed porpoise
© Henk Tanis
Fishers off the coast of the Netherlands got quite a shock when they caught what has now been confirmed as the first case of conjoined twin harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena).

With a single body and two fully grown heads, this is a case of partial twinning, or parapagus dicephalus. The sighting is extremely rare: these male porpoises are only the 10th known case of conjoined twins in cetaceans, a group of animals that also includes whales and dolphins.

"The anatomy of cetaceans is strikingly different from terrestrial mammals with adaptations for living in the sea as a mammal. Much is unknown," says Erwin Kompanje at the Erasmus MC University Medical Center in Rotterdam, and one of the authors of the paper describing the find. "Adding any extra case to the known nine specimens brings more knowledge on this aspect."
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Binoculars

Bird from the tropics, the brown booby, seen for first time in New Hampshire

Breanna Edelstein
Eagle Tribune
Wed, 14 Jun 2017 14:40 UTC
A Brown Booby, a rare sea bird never spotted in New Hampshire before Saturday, sits on a deck overlooking Cobbetts Pond in Windham.
© AMANDA SABGA A Brown Booby, a rare sea bird never spotted in New Hampshire before Saturday, sits on a deck overlooking Cobbetts Pond in Windham.
Bird aficionados and wildlife photographers from across the region are flocking to Cobbett's Pond, hoping to catch a glimpse of a rare species spotted in the Granite State for the first time Saturday.

A summer renter staying near the Town Beach noticed the large seabird — known as a Brown Booby — perched on his waterfront deck over the weekend.

"I knew it didn't belong here just by looking at it," said John Kleschinsky. "It never left Saturday. And on Sunday, it would fly away and then come back every 15 minutes."

Word spread quickly after an interested Kleschinsky posted a photo on Facebook, asking if anyone had information to share.

The responses came flooding in, and so did interested bird watchers.

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Attention

Hundreds of dead seagulls litter road in Detroit, Michigan

Charlie Langton
fox2detroit.com
Tue, 13 Jun 2017 14:23 UTC
dead gulls
Hundreds of dead seagulls are filling Jefferson Ave, creating a major mess.

Residents near Jefferson Ave, just north of the Rouge Bridge, don't know what to make of the surge in birds.

Linda Dackery, who lives in the area, says it's hard to believe what she's seeing.

"I thought they were dive-bombing the cars, I don't know what's going on."

The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) tells FOX 2 young birds live nearby over and then walk across Jefferson and they get squashed.

The DNR has done testing on the carcasses of these goals. The preliminary findings show some of them died because of dehydration, others died because of the cars.

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Fish

Thousands of dead fish wash up in Matagorda Bay, Texas

Amanda O'Donnell
The Statesman
Mon, 12 Jun 2017 12:15 UTC
A screengrab of the video showing thousands of dead fish washed up in Texas
A screengrab of the video showing thousands of dead fish washed up in Texas
Thousands of dead and dying fish washed ashore at Matagorda Bay Nature Park Friday, the Houston Chronicle reports.

Video captured by Youtube user "The Fish Whisperer" shows just how extensive the fish kill was.

The video's description describes a scene where "all of a sudden a huge amount of menhaden started to surface and then die. Pretty soon there were miles of menhaden washing up and dying along with other bigger game fish."

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Eye 2

Crocodile kills man on Little Andaman island, India

Sanjib Kumar Roy
New Indian Express
Mon, 12 Jun 2017 18:42 UTC
Croc
© Manisha Jain
In yet another case of human- animal conflict in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a crocodile attacked and killed a man from Little Andaman, on Saturday.

According to reports, Sujan Gain (32) from V K Pur village in Little Andaman, went for fishing at V K Pur Creek with one of his friends on Saturday evening.

While trying to cross the creek, Gain slipped and fell into it. Immediately, a crocodile appeared from nowhere and dragged him into deep waters, said an eyewitness.

The matter was reported to police and a massive search operation was launched. The body was recovered in mutilated state, police said.
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Wolf

Pitbull terrier attacks child for the third time in Vidor, Texas

Jacque Masse
12newsnow
Thu, 08 Jun 2017 21:22 UTC
canine attack
© Angela Antunes / CC by 2.0
An 11-year-old boy from Vidor is recovering after he was bitten by the same Pitbull for the third time this year.

His mother, Michelle Watts said he was taken to the hospital so he could get several stitches on the back of his leg.

"If people could have saw what he had to go through in the hospital to get the stitches cleaned up, that's heartbreaking just because someone couldn't put their dog up," said Watts.

Her son, Tyler Watts, was attacked by the pitbull when he was riding his bike down the street. Tyler Watt's said the dog knocked him off his bike then dragged him by the leg to the owner's yard at the intersection of Ruth place and Willow Bend drive.
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Attention

36 whales wash up on west coast of India in 2 years

Rohit Alok
The Indian Express
Mon, 12 Jun 2017 19:42 UTC
This Bryde’s whale carcass washed ashore on Juhu beach in January 2016.
This Bryde’s whale carcass washed ashore on Juhu beach in January 2016.
Last month, an international group of marine biologists submitted a report to the International Whaling Commission, Slovenia, highlighting an alarming rise in the number of whales washing ashore to India's west coast in the last two years. The report cited 16 instances of whale mortality along the west coast in 2015, followed by 20 in 2016. This was hugely more than in any year between 2001 and 2014, when the number of whale deaths never exceeded four.

From the emaciated look of the carcasses washed ashore in recent years, researchers believe that they were short of food and moved closer to the shores looking for fish. They say the fish population in the sea has reduced drastically due to a sharp decrease in dissolved oxygen in the water. The team that wrote the report included three members of the Konkan Cetacean Research Team (KCRT) besides researchers of James Cook University in Australia, the Terra Marine Research Institute in Bangalore and the Department of Oceanography of the University of Washington in Seattle.
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Bomb

Flock of geese 'bombed' Disneyland

Nisha Gutierrez-Jaime
KTLA 5
Sat, 10 Jun 2017 19:42 UTC
Disneyland
© Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles TimesDisneyland at 60: the “happiest place on Earth,” but by no means the cheapest.
Seventeen people were struck by droppings from a flock of geese who were above a large group of people at Disneyland on Friday night.

Police and firefighters responded to Disneyland about 9 p.m. after a report of about 20 people being hit with "fecal matter," the Anaheim Police Department said in a tweet. But it was later determined the droppings came from a flock of geese overhead. Eleven adults and six juveniles were struck by the geese droppings.

The Orange County Register reported Disneyland provided a private restroom for the the affected people to clean up and also gave them clean clothes.
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Attention

19-year-old surfer bitten by shark in Ponce Inlet, Florida

Janet Brindle Reddick
Orlando Sentinel
Sat, 10 Jun 2017 15:08 UTC
Shark attacks
A 19-year-old Ponce Inlet surfer was bitten by a shark while in waist-deep water just before 10 a.m. Saturday, but suffered non-life threatening injuries.

The man was just north of the jetty at the time of the incident, according to Tamra Marris, spokeswoman for the Volusia County Beach Safety Ocean Rescue.

Marris said no one saw the shark, but the bite on the man's foot was "consistent with a shark bite." He was taken to the hospital for treatment.
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Attention

Bodyboarder attacked by 4m great white shark off Bunbury, Western Australia

Hannah Barry
WA Today
Sun, 11 Jun 2017 14:51 UTC
Shark attacks
A man has been knocked off his bodyboard by a four-metre great white shark while surfing at Point Casuarina in Bunbury on Sunday morning.

The man was less than 50 metres offshore at the beach when the shark bumped his board at about 8.30am.

Witness Martin Lottering told WAtoday he was in the look-out tower at the time.

"I took my binoculars to have a look at the fishing boats out on the water," he said.

"I spent some time watching the guys in the water on their bodyboards, and eventually I noticed a swirling and thrashing in the water next to one of the guys.
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