Animals
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Attention

Heavy ice likely to have crushed 9 blue whales to death off Newfoundland

Nick Logan
globalnews.ca
Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:46 UTC
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© Dept. of Fisheries and OceansBlue whale carcasses were spotted on the ice on southwest coast of Newfoundland.

Warning: Disturbing images. Blue whale carcasses were spotted on the ice off the southwest coast of Newfoundland, while a sperm whale carcass washed up on the southeast coast.

Several endangered blue whales have been found dead in ice off Newfoundland - probably crushed to death by ice, says the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO).

DFO said the carcasses of blue whales were spotted last month, stuck in thick ice off of the southwest coast of the island.

Dr. Jack Lawson, a researcher with DFO, told Global News he and a colleague spotted nine dead whales while flying over the ice, about 40 nautical miles west of Cape Anguille. He said they were around 20 metres long - the "length of two school buses."
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Heart - Black

Rhino poaching increasing in South Africa, with 277 killed this year


The Sydney Morning Herald
Thu, 10 Apr 2014 03:59 UTC
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© AFPApproaching extinction: Rhinos graze in South Africa.
Rhino poaching is on the rise in South Africa, with 277 of the endangered animals killed this year despite government attempts to clamp down on poaching, the environment ministry said Wednesday.

Illegal hunting is up more than a third compared to the same time a year ago, when 203 of the giant animals were slaughtered by poachers, the ministry said in a statement.

More than half of the attacks were in Kruger National Park, where 166 animals were killed in the first three months of 2014, despite the deployment of troops to protect them.

Authorities in the vast national park, which borders Mozambique, have been battling to curb the scourge of rhino poaching that threatens to drive the endangered species into extinction.
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Arrow Down

Dead birds falling from the sky in Oklahoma, experts say 'no cause for concern.' Right!

Barbara Schneider
examiner.com
Sat, 05 Apr 2014 13:04 UTC
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© blogs.sfweekly.com
Dead birds fall from the sky in Oklahoma and experts say 'no cause for concern.' If you believe that then . . . Dead birds falling from the sky is NOT normal.

On Apr 3, dead birds fell from the sky in Norman, Oklahoma. Even though state wildlife officials say "there's no cause for concern," residents are alarmed, and with good reason. Dead birds falling from the sky is not an everyday occurrence anywhere, let alone in Oklahoma, with its loud booms, rumbling, and shaking.

On Thursday, Becki Miller, a homeowner near Highway 9 and Interstate 35, heard a thump and saw that a dead bird had fallen to the ground. During the next 24 hours, at least a dozen more birds dropped "dead from the skies" into her yard. Also, according to The Oklahoman, a TV station reported another 20 birds were found the same day within a square mile of Miller's home.

Dead birds aside for a moment, there are good reasons why Oklahomans should be alarmed about the unusual happenings in their state.

Comment: Not mentioned above is blast from overhead exploding space rocks as an explanation for both the bird deaths and the associated loud booms. See also: Radar Dopppler images confirm overhead 'turbulence' cause of 2011 mass bird death case in Beebe, Arkansas

Over 30 birds fall dead from the sky in Norman, Oklahoma

Mystery boom rattles homes in Duncan, Oklahoma

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Bacon

Pork prices rise after virus kills piglets


Associated Press
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 14:45 UTC
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© AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, FileDr. Craig Rowles stands with hogs in one of his Carroll, Iowa, hog buildings.
A virus never before seen in the U.S. has killed millions of baby pigs in less than a year, and with little known about how it spreads or how to stop it, it's threatening pork production and pushing up prices by 10 percent or more.

Estimates vary, but one economist believes case data indicate more than 6 million piglets in 27 states have died since porcine epidemic diarrhea showed up in the U.S. last May. A more conservative estimate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows the nation's pig herd has shrunk at least 3 percent to about 63 million pigs since the disease appeared.

Scientists think the virus, which does not infect humans or other animals, came from China, but they don't know how it got into the country. The federal government is looking into how such viruses might spread, while the pork industry, wary of future outbreaks, has committed $1.7 million to research the disease.
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Cloud Lightning

Lightning kills over 60 dairy cows in Chile


yahoo.com
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 16:10 UTC
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© AP Photo/Radio San Jose de AlcudiaIn this Monday, April 7, 2014 cell phone image provided by local station, Radio San Jose de Alcudia and downloaded from its Facebook page, a herd of cattle carcasses skirt a tree on a ranch in Rio Bueno, Chile. Ranchers in southern Chile say a series of lightning strikes spawned by storms has killed more than 60 of their dairy cows.
Ranchers in southern Chile say a series of lightning strikes has killed more than 60 of their dairy cows, costing the cattle owners thousands of dollars.

Storms on Sunday spawned the strikes in south-central Chile. Worst hit was a ranch in Los Rios owned by Cecil Fourt, who says 54 of his cows were killed by lightning and another one was blinded. Another rancher, Claudio Toledo, says nine of his cows sheltering under a tree were struck and killed.

The El Austral newspaper reported Tuesday that workers were digging a deep pit to bury the cattle.

Source: AP
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Info

Americans seem to think their dogs deserve better food than they do

Roberto A. Ferdman
Quartz
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 11:09 UTC
Dog Restaurant
© Reuters/Brendan McDermidTable manners to come.

Difficult times may have forced Americans to scale back on a few expenses, but dog food doesn't appear to be one of them. Not the fancy stuff, anyway.

Dog food sales have just about doubled in the US since 2000. Americans spent a record $14 billion feeding its pet canines last year, and that number is expected to climb another 19% to nearly $17 billion by 2018, according to data from Euromonitor. But no dog food is selling quite like fancy dog food.

The market for premium dog food - the most expensive kinds, including pricey organic offerings and never-frozen meals - has grown by nearly 170% over the past 15 years. It now accounts for a bigger chunk of the market than medium- and low-priced varieties combined. Far more, in fact. So much so, that the most expensive chow now accounts for some 57% of the overall dog food market, compared to the 36% share it held back in 1999.

Americans are spending more overall on dog food because they're buying more dogs. There are now more than 83 million dogs in the US. Some 57% of American households now own a dog, according to a 2013 survey by the American Pet Products Association.
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Attention

Dead Sperm Whale washes up in Biscay Bay, Newfoundland


vocm.com
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 11:33 UTC
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© Sharon Topping

An unusual sight in Biscay Bay off the south coast of Newfoundland is drawing a fair number of curiosity-seekers. A dead sperm whale rolled onto shore late last week. The Town Clerk with the nearby town of Trepassey says she took a trip down to the area after hearing about it on Facebook. She says it's an extraordinary sight but also quite sad.

Recent pictures show the carcass well up onto the beach. Topping says while it's drawing a lot of visitors right now, that won't be the case if the carcass lingers in the area into the summer. She says he's the talk of the town right now, but by summer his welcome will be worn out.
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Info

30 Dead dolphins have washed up at Galveston since oil spill


newsfixnow.com
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 11:39 UTC
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© AP/Jennifer ReynoldsGerald Joubert bags oil-soaked sand on the Texas City Dike as crews start the clean-up after the Galveston Bay oil spill.

Just as it seemed the clean-up efforts from last months oil spill under control, there's new evidence washing ashore that proves to the public just how much nearly 168,000 gallons of oil affects wildlife.

The U.S. Coast Guard confirms that 30 dead dolphins have been found in the Galveston area since the wreck, 48 total in March. That's well above average, and very well above last years recovery of only 15.

A high number of dead dolphins is typical during what is called the stranding season from January through March, but so far, 2 have been confirmed to have oil on their bodies and two more are being tested for possible oil exposure.

Though it's not proven that oil is the definite cause of the increase in stranding yet, it's definitely a concern, and until the murky waters are all cleared up, we won't know exactly how much our wildlife will be impacted.
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Butterfly

Bye-bye butterfly: monarchs' are about to disappear

Tim Johnson
Miami Herald
Mon, 31 Mar 2014 08:55 UTC
monarch butterfly
© Tim Johnson / MCTA monarch butterfly lands on the head of an unsuspecting photographer in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico's Michoacan state, March 21, 2014
On a high mountain slope in central Mexico, a patch of fir trees looks dusted in orange and black. In fact, millions of monarch butterflies cloak the trees. The forest murmurs with the whir of their flapping wings.

Every year, hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies, each so light that 50 together weigh barely an ounce, find their way on what may be the world's longest insect migration, traveling the length of North America to pass the winter in central Mexico.

Yet the great monarch migration is in peril, a victim of rampant herbicide use in faraway corn and soybean fields, extreme weather, a tiny microbial pathogen and deforestation. Monarch butterfly populations are plummeting. The dense colonies of butterflies on central Mexican peaks were far smaller this year than ever before.

Scientists say Mexico's monarch butterfly colonies, as many as several million butterflies in one acre, are on the cusp of disappearing. If the species were to vanish, one of the few creatures emblematic of all North America, a beloved insect with powerhouse stamina that even school kids can easily identify, would be gone.
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People 2

Social isolation affects DNA

Alton Parrish
ineffableisland.com
Sat, 05 Apr 2014 05:43 UTC
grey parrot
In captivity, grey parrots are often kept in social isolation, which can have detrimental effects on their health and well-being. So far there have not been any studies on the effects of long term social isolation from conspecifics on cellular aging.

Telomeres shorten with each cell division, and once a critical length is reached, cells are unable to divide further (a stage known as 'replicative senescence'). Although cellular senescence is a useful mechanism to eliminate worn-out cells, it appears to contribute to aging and mortality. Several studies suggest that telomere shortening is accelerated by stress, but until now, no studies have examined the effects of social isolation on telomere shortening.
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