Animals
S


Attention

Man in stable condition following possible bear attack in Campbell County, Tennessee


wbir.com
Fri, 04 Sep 2015 12:03 UTC
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A Campbell Co. man is hospitalized after he was attacked by an animal overnight. Investigators believe it was a bear, and are searching for it.
A Campbell County man was sent to the University of Tennessee Medical Center on Friday morning after he was attacked by a "large animal with dark coarse hair."

Michael Savage, 27, of LaFollette sustained "severe and significant injuries," according to Sheriff Robbie Goins. A spokesperson with the University of Tennessee Medical Center said Savage was in stable condition.

Matthew Cameron with TWRA said at a news conference Friday afternoon that authorities could not confirm the animal was a bear. Cameron said the man doesn't know what attacked him.

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Attention

High number of dying seabirds found in San Francisco Bay Area

Alan Wang
abc7news.com
Wed, 02 Sep 2015 19:22 UTC
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An alarming number of dead or dying sea birds are washing up on Bay Area beaches and bird rescue centers say they're being inundated with a particular species. ABC7 News traveled to the Marin headlands where many of them are washing up.

Beach goer Holly Barbarisi recently found 20 dead murre sea birds along Rodeo Beach on the Marin headlands. She also found one alive flapping in the surf.

Barbarisi told ABC7 News, "And it was obviously disabled and unable to fend for itself, so I did take it into Wild Care."

That bird and many other survivors are transferred to the International Bird Rescue Center in Fairfield.


Comment: See also these similar recent reports of dead seabirds found along the western seaboard of North America: Hundreds of seabirds wash up either dead or dying along the Oregon and Southwest Washington Coast

Dozens of dead seabirds found on beaches around Homer, Alaska

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Attention

Shark mauls 65-year-old man near Forster, Australia


ctvnews.ca
Fri, 04 Sep 2015 13:04 UTC
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© Peter StoopMr Quinlivan arriving at John Hunter Hospital, Newcastle, after he was attacked at Black Head Beach.
A 65-year-old man was mauled by a shark off Australia's most populous state on Friday, but managed to get back on his surf ski and get help for a serious leg injury, police said.

David Quinlivan was paddling a surf ski near the New South Wales state town of Forster, 300 kilometres north of Sydney, when he was attacked, police said. They said he fell into the water but got back on the surf ski and managed to get closer to shore, where bystanders were able to help him from the water.

One of those bystanders, Warren Thompson, said he and others ran into the surf to help Quinlivan.

"He had lost his paddle but was able to climb back onto the ski and caught a wave to the shore," Thompson said.

Thompson added: "It looked to us like he was having a heart attack. When we reached him, he told us to stay out of the water."

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Wolf

Hungry polar bears surround weather station on Vaygach island in north Russia

Devender Kundaliya
biztekmojo.com
Thu, 03 Sep 2015 16:45 UTC
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Polar bears
Five polar bears have surrounded a team of three unarmed meteorologists and engineers at Fyodorov weather station located at Vaygach island in north Russia.

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Russia, the presence of these bears is preventing the researchers from leaving the weather station building to conduct their daily work, such as measurement of water temperatures in the Arctic Sea.

The team at Fyodorov weather station consists of an engineer and two meteorologists Every day, researchers have to go several hundred meters away from outpost to measure water temperatures in the sea.

A researcher at the station told Viktor Nikiforov, the head of the WWF Polar Bear Patrol project, that hungry bears have settled in the fields outside the building and can be seen fighting with each other. They are aggressive and "recently grappled, fighting near the house."

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Attention

Black bear attack in Nicholas County, West Virginia


wdtv.com
Thu, 03 Sep 2015 14:38 UTC
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© West Virginia Department of CommerceBlack bear
The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (DNR) has investigated an attack on a man by a black bear in the Mount Nebo area of Nicholas County, West Virginia, according to Colin Carpenter, black bear project leader for the DNR.

On August 26, 2015, a man was knocked down and bitten several times by a female black bear after he had unexpectedly walked up on a cub in the trail. The man fought back aggressively and was able to deter the female bear, according to Carpenter. The man escaped the attack with minor injuries. A lack of physical evidence from the bear and delayed reporting of the attack precluded any attempts to capture the offending animal.

"Bear attacks on humans are rare, but this recent incident should serve to remind people how unpredictable wild animals can be," said Carpenter. "Although this appears to be a defensive attack by a female with young cubs, the fact that the man fought back aggressively most likely prevented more severe injuries."
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Fish

Mystery of thousands of fish that washed up on Queensland beach then disappeared

Kathy Sundstrom
The Sunshine Coast Daily
Fri, 04 Sep 2015 06:17 UTC
Dead Fish on Beach
© www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.auHERE ONE DAY: A reader’s photo of the dead fish on the beach at Buddina.
THE mystery surrounding the "thousands" of small fish that beached themselves at Buddina remains just that.

They were gone in less than 24 hours.

The Environment and Heritage Department, the Queensland Museum and an astronomer who knows about tides were all unable to explain it.

Buddina resident Susan Sheard took the photo of the washed up fish when taking a walk along the beach on Wednesday afternoon.

Ms Sheard, who has lived on the Coast for 10 years, had never seen so many fish washed up at the same time.

"It was a super low tide and there were thousands of them," she said.

"Some of them were still alive, flipping around and I threw a few back in the water. But there were too many."
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Attention

Russian town besieged by hungry bears; one man killed and other locals attacked

Will Stewart
Daily Mail, UK
Thu, 03 Sep 2015 20:15 UTC
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Unwelcome guest: This is one of the bears which has surrounded the town of Luchegorsk, in eastern Russia
A Russian town is under siege from at least three dozen ravenous bears, leaving many locals too terrified to open their doors and go outside.

In a month-long blockade, the hungry beasts have attacked residents in Luchegorsk - population 20,000 - and there are reports of one man being killed.

Inhabitants say at least eight Asian black bears have been shot as they stalk the streets and terrorise the town in the country's extreme east, close to the Chinese border.

One woman likened the bear threat to being under siege from an army.

'Hunters say that they looked at the area from a helicopter - there are crowds of these bears, like army units,' she said.

'We are scared to walk outside.

'All doors are shut in kindergartens, there are written warnings everywhere that walking with kids is allowed only in certain areas.'

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Arrow Down

Japanese town's controversial dolphin hunt begins


Digital Journal
Thu, 03 Sep 2015 10:55 UTC
Ric O'Barry
© Shingo Ito/Agence France-PresseUS dolphin activist Ric O'Barry, the central figure in the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, protests against dolphin hunting in Taiji in Wakayama prefecture, western Japan on November 2, 2010.
A small Japanese town began its controversial dolphin hunt on Thursday after bad weather delayed the start, according to a local fisheries official, while a separate whaling hunt was due to start at the weekend.

But the dolphin-hunt boats returned to Taiji's port -- thrust into the global spotlight in the Oscar-winning 2009 documentary The Cove -- having failed to trap any of the mammals.

"Twelve boats set out for the hunt, but they returned with no catch," a Taiji fisheries spokeswoman told AFP.

They will set sail again on Friday if the weather allows, she added.

The six-month season was due to start Tuesday.

In the annual hunt, people from the southwestern town corral hundreds of dolphins into a secluded bay and butcher them, turning the water crimson red.

The scene was featured in The Cove documentary, drawing unwanted attention to the little coastal community.

Environmental campaigners visit the town every year to watch the gruesome event and authorities have boosted their presence to prevent any clashes between locals and activists.
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Cloud Precipitation

300 flamingoes killed by hailstones in Albacete, Spain


spanishnewstoday.com
Wed, 02 Sep 2015 20:24 UTC
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Dead flamingoes
Dozens more birds were injured at the lagoon of Pétrola

There have been various stories in the news during the early part of this week concerning the rash of fierce hailstorms which has affected numerous areas of the country, and some of the most violent storms have hit the province of Albacete in the region of Castilla La Mancha.

One of these occurred at the saltwater lagoon of Pétrola in the east of the province on Monday, where around 300 flamingoes are reported to have died although an official total has not yet been finalized. The regional firefighting services were called in to help environmental officials remove the dead birds from the water, and dozens of injured flamingoes were also rescued from the lagoon by staff on board small zodiac boats which were brought from Almansa and Hellín as they worked all morning to clear the shallow water.
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Question

60,000 antelopes died in Kazakhstan in 4 days — and no one knows why

Tia Ghose
Live Science
Wed, 02 Sep 2015 07:51 UTC
Saigas Die-Off
© Albert SalemgareyevIn May 2015, nearly half of all the saigas, a critically endangered antelope that roams the steppe of Kazakhstan, died off. Exactly why is still a mystery.
It started in late May.

When geoecologist Steffen Zuther and his colleagues arrived in central Kazakhstan to monitor the calving of one herd of saigas, a critically endangered, steppe-dwelling antelope, veterinarians in the area had already reported dead animals on the ground.

"But since there happened to be die-offs of limited extent during the last years, at first we were not really alarmed," Zuther, the international coordinator of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, told Live Science.

But within four days, the entire herd — 60,000 saiga — had died. As veterinarians and conservationists tried to stem the die-off, they also got word of similar population crashes in other herds across Kazakhstan. By early June, the mass dying was over. [See Images of the Saiga Mass Die-Off]

Now, the researchers have found clues as to how more than half of the country's herd, counted at 257,000 as of 2014, died so rapidly. Bacteria clearly played a role in the saigas' demise. But exactly how these normally harmless microbes could take such a toll is still a mystery, Zuther said.

"The extent of this die-off, and the speed it had, by spreading throughout the whole calving herd and killing all the animals, this has not been observed for any other species," Zuther said. "It's really unheard of."
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