At least 54 bottlenose dolphins have died mysteriously in Florida's Indian River Lagoon since January. Today, the federal government is stepping in to help find out what's killing them.

In a normal year, that number would be closer to 22.

On July 24, NOAA declared the mass die-off an "Unusual Mortality Event" - a declaration that will send federal resources and scientists to help teams already on the ground in Florida. It's the lagoon's worst dolphin die-off on record, and the cause is mysterious.

"This has become a national investigation, instead of a local investigation," said Megan Stolen, a marine biologist with Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, the nonprofit organization that has been investigating and keeping track of the dolphin deaths so far. "This will definitely help us."

It's the second time this year that NOAA has declared an Unusual Mortality Event for marine mammals in the lagoon, a 156-mile-long estuary that runs along Florida's Atlantic coast. In April, a mass manatee die-off received the same designation.

This is the third time a UME has been declared for dolphins in the lagoon. What caused the others, in 2001 and 2008, is still a mystery.

As we've written before, the mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America's apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow. Now, a new study has pinpointed some of the probable causes of bee deaths and the rather scary results show that averting beemageddon will be much more difficult than previously thought.

Scientists had struggled to find the trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition.

But in a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have indentified a witch's brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying though they do not identify the specific cause of CCD, where an entire beehive dies at once.

When researchers collected pollen from hives on the east coast pollinating cranberry, watermelon and other crops and fed it to healthy bees, those bees showed a significant decline in their ability to resist infection by a parasite called Nosema ceranae. The parasite has been implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder though scientists took pains to point out that their findings do not directly link the pesticides to CCD. The pollen was contaminated on average with nine different pesticides and fungicides though scientists discovered 21 agricultural chemicals in one sample. Scientists identified eight ag chemicals associated with increased risk of infection by the parasite.

Tens of thousands of dead eels have washed ashore in China over the past few weeks.

The eel is just the latest animal to die en masse in China's waters. In March, thousands of dead pigs were dumped by farmers into the Hangpu River in Shanghai, and hundreds of dead ducks and fish have also turned up in Chinese waterways.

Although no one knows the cause yet, some suspect the China National Offshore Oil Company may be responsible, the website Quartz reported. That company is doubling its crude oil production.

But the company and local administrators say the eels died of natural causes. The company says ocean currents brought a confluence of low temperatures, low oxygen and high salt content that killed off the eels, the South China Morning Post reported.

Starfish, whose fanciful five-armed figure is symbolic of the seashore, have become veritable shooting stars of late - here one moment, gone the next.

Following a boom in their population only a few years ago, starfish have since become so scarce that researchers in Rhode Island are even having difficulty collecting enough of them to study an unidentified disease that may be linked to their die-off.

"It's one of those mystery detective stories," said Marta Gomez-Chiarri, a biology professor at the University of Rhode Island in the department of fisheries, animal and veterinary science.

The case of the disappearing starfish, also known as sea stars, began more than a year ago when Caitlin DelSesto, then an undergraduate student at URI, began collecting starfish for a project on how they respond to ocean acidification, a symptom of climate change.

Tharparkar: Wildlife Department has failed to control the New Castle "Ranikhet" disease as two more peacocks died of the deadly disease here on Thursday raising the overall death toll to 118.

It should be mentioned that beauty of Tharparkar, renowned for the wandering peacocks in open air, was fading due to deaths of peacocks due to birds epidemics.

More than 300 peacocks were killed of New Castle disease locally known as Ranikhet last year and 118 have died during last two months.

The locals who love the precious bird like their other pets have expressed grave concerns over outspread of disease as it claimed more than 100 of their beloved birds besides leaving dozens others affected. It was feared that death toll may rise further as many peacocks were stated to be adversely affected of Ranikhet.

They demanded the Wildlife Department and government to take steps to save the precious birds from extinction.

Scientists from Denmark and Canada are worried by their new findings showing that several bioaccumulative perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are crossing the blood brain barrier of polar bears from Scoresby Sound, East Greenland.

PerFluoroAlkyl Substances (PFASs) and precursor compounds have been used in a wide variety of commercial and industrial products over the past six decades. Applications include water and oil repellent coatings, e.g. for textiles, paper products, carpets and food packaging, pharmaceuticals and surfactants in cleaning products and fire-fighting foams. PFASs are highly resistant to chemical, thermal and biological degradation.

PFASs and their precursor compounds have shown a dramatic increase and dispersal around the world over the past four decades. An increasing amount of information is becoming available on the toxicity of these compounds. Hence, studies have documented the toxicity of PFASs on wildlife and human health, including carcinogenesis, genotoxicity and epigenetic effects as well as reproductive and developmental toxicities, neurotoxicity, effects on the endocrine system and immunotoxicity.

Bioaccumulative PFASs enter all parts of the brain

Despite the fact that the liver is considered the major repository in the body for most PFASs, some shorter chain compounds from this grouping have previously been reported in the brain of chicken embryos, suggesting that they are able to cross the blood-brain barrier.

Previous studies have shown a dramatic biomagnification of several PFASs, and particularly one known as perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) as well as several compounds of the perfluorinated carboxylate (PFCAs) grouping, in polar bears. PFOS have been shown to be at concentrations in the liver that are 100 fold higher than the ringed seals on which they are predating. In a new study Arctic researchers from Carleton University in Canada and Aarhus University in Denmark have used the polar bear as a sentinel species for humans and other predators in the top of the food chain. The researchers demonstrated accumulation of PFOS and several PFCAs in eight brain regions of polar bears collected from Scoresby Sound, East Greenland. Dr. Robert Letcher, Carleton University, explains:

"We know that fat soluble contaminants are able to cross the brain-blood barrier, but is it quite worrying that the PFOS and PFCAs, which are more associated with proteins in the body, were present in all the brain regions we analyzed."

Professor Rune Dietz, Aarhus University, is also worried about the results: "If PFOS and PFCAs can cross the blood-brain barrier in polar bears, it will also be the case in humans. The brain is one of the most essential parts of the body, where anthropogenic chemicals can have a severe impact. However, we are beginning to see the effect of the efforts to minimize the dispersal of this group of contaminants."

Two decades of plummeting population halves number of key species, adversely affecting bees, birds and biodiversity - study

Europe's grassland butterfly population has plummeted in the past two decades, new research published on Tuesday shows, with a near halving in the numbers of key species since 1990.

The precipitous decline has been blamed on poor agricultural practices and pesticides, by the European Environment Agency, which carried out the research. Falling numbers of butterflies are bad news not just for nature-lovers and for biodiversity, but have a knock-on effect on farming, as - like bees - they act as pollinators, and their disappearance harms birds and other creatures that need them for food.

Butterfly populations are a leading indicator of the health of other insect species. The new study therefore suggests many other species of insect, which are also food sources for birds and small mammals, and which play a key role in the health of the countryside, are also under threat.

Scientists from the EEA, the European Unoin's environment watchdog, looked at 17 key species of grassland butterflies, of which seven were common species and 10 more specialist, using data gathered from 1990 to 2011 in 19 European countries. Of the total 17 species, eight have declined, including the common blue, which has suffered a serious fall in numbers; two species remained stable, including the Orangetip; and only one increased. The trend for the remaining six species is still uncertain, including the much-appreciated Lulworth skipper, beloved of butterfly watchers.

Grassland butterflies make up the majority of butterflies in Europe, with over 250 species out of the more than 400 found in Europe. Others species prefer to colonise woods, wetlands, heaths and other habitats. Chris van Swaay, one of the authors of the report, from the Dutch conservation organisation De Vlinderstichting, said that the same pesticides that affect bees - leading to the EU to ban certain products, at least temporarily - also have an effect on butterflies. "The pesticide problem is especially a problem in the intensive agricultural areas of western Europe," he said. "In eastern Europe, it is less of a problem."

A 2-year-old girl was recovering Tuesday after being attacked by a coyote.

The girl was with her mother at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress on July 18 when the attack occurred, authorities said.

"My 3-year-old said 'oh a doggy' and I said 'no that's a coyote.' As I was running over there my daughter Klarissa turned around and it bit her." mother Michelle Luper said.

The coyote bit the girl on her back, then dragged her by the leg toward some bushes.

Texakana, AR (KSLA) -

A buzzard landing on a power line set off a chain of events Tuesday morning in Texarkana that left about 1,200 customers without power and one unsuspecting driver shaken and burned.

Jerry Cunningham says he was driving in the 1700 block of East 9th St. when he heard what sounded like an electrical transformer blowing and then saw power lines arcing in his direction.

The next thing he knew, something hit his car, cracking the windshield and sending sparks flying.

"I had all my windows and sunroof opened. That is where I got these burns from," Cunningham says, pointing to red welted streaks on his side. "It hurts like crazy."

AEP SWEPCO says the buzzard had landed on a ground wire and when that wire broke, it fell on a 12,000 volt transmission line.

Power was restored to customers about an hour later.

A long, silver, unpleasant-looking fish with sharp teeth which washed up at Rabbit Island was dubbed a monster fish by beach visitors.

However, it was likely to be a frostfish, said Nelson-based University of Otago marine educator Richard de Hamel.

Frostfish got their name because they tended to be found on frosty mornings when the temperature dropped and they came to shore, he said.

He recalled that one was found at Ruby Bay four years ago, and another at Mapua. Beach walkers were not the only ones to discover the frostfish at Rabbit Island - seagulls found it to be a large snack.

Source: Fairfax NZ News