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Igloo

Baby boomer marmots fatten up with climate change

Wendy Zukerman
New Scientist
Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:41 UTC
Image
© Inklein/CC 3.0
Life sure is good
The good times have been rolling for Colorado's baby-boomer marmots. They've been getting fatter and their population has been swelling - but the news is not all good. The changes seem to be caused by the warming climate.

A team led by Daniel Blumstein of the University of California, Los Angeles, have been monitoring the yellow-bellied marmots of Colorado's Upper East river for over three decades. Blumstein recently realised the population had exploded. "It's boom time in this region," he says.

Looking at records with Arpat Ozgul of Imperial College London, he saw that marmot numbers had been fairly stable since the mid-1970s, but in 2001 they suddenly began growing by an average of 14.2 marmots per year. Between 1976 and 2001 the population had gained an average of 0.56 marmots per year.

When the team analysed the body mass figures of 1190 marmots collected between 1976 and 2008, they found another trend. Again, weights were relatively stable up until around 2000, and rose sharply after that. "They're getting fatter," says Blumstein.

Comment: Perhaps the marmots read this article by Laura Knight-Jadczyk: Fire and Ice - The Day After Tomorrow

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Cow Skull

US: Kansas heat wave has killed 2,000 cattle

Bob Burgdorfer
Reuters
Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:38 UTC
cow
© Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko
A cow looks out of its stall during an agricultural exhibition near the village of Liavonavichi, some 10 km (6 miles) north of the capital Minsk, June 10, 2010.

Chicago - The intense heat and humidity that blanketed central Kansas since late last week have killed more than 2,000 cattle and one state official called the heat-related losses the worst in his 17 years on the job.

However, conditions for the cattle improved somewhat on Tuesday as the humidity has decreased and the wind has picked up, state and feedlot sources said.

Kansas is the third largest cattle state with more than 2 million cattle in feedlots.
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Fish

Hundreds of dead penguins wash up on Brazil shores


Agence France-Presse
Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:16 UTC
Magellanic penguins
© AFP/File/Mauricio Lima
Magellanic penguins swim off the coast of Santos, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Hundreds of dead penguins and other sea animals have washed up on Sao Paulo state's shores and scientists are investigating the causes, according to environment officials.
Hundreds of dead penguins and other sea animals have washed up on Sao Paulo state's shores and scientists are investigating the causes, environment officials told Folha Online news agency.

The Institute of Environment and Natural Resources said 530 penguins, numerous other sea birds, five dolphins and three giant sea turtles have been found in the coastal towns of Peruibe, Praia Grande and Itanhaem, with more likely on other nearby beaches.

Sao Paulo University biologists and a wildlife research center are looking into the possible reasons for the animal deaths, the institute said.

Praia Grande authorities have ruled out pollution, saying preliminary investigations point to starvation as the cause.

The most likely scenario for the penguin deaths is exhaustion and hunger during their long migration from the waters off Argentina's southern Patagonia region, said Andrea Maranho, a veterinarian for the Sea Animal Rehabilitation Center in Praia Grande.
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Arrow Down

Mystery of Britain's Vanishing Kestrels as Population Drops 20% Since the 1990s

David Derbyshire
The Daily Mail
Sun, 18 Jul 2010 17:30 UTC
Image
© Alamy
Sad: There has been a 36 per cent fall in numbers of Kestrel last year
One of the country's most familiar birds of prey is vanishing at an alarming rate, experts warned yesterday.

They say numbers of kestrels, which are often seen hovering over the verges of major roads, fell by more than a third last year.

The mysterious disappearance of thousands of birds in one year follows a steady decline - the kestrel population has dropped by around 20 per cent since the mid-1990s.

Bird experts are baffled by the recent fall, but suspect the hard winter combined with their vanishing rural habitat has taken its toll.
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Attention

Coral Reefs Suffer Mass Bleaching From Heating Oceans

Richard Gray
The Telegraph
Sun, 18 Jul 2010 04:30 UTC
Image
© Alamy
Coral bleaching in Maldives, Indian Ocean
Coral reefs are suffering widespread damage in what is set to be one of the worst years ever for the delicate and beautiful habitats.

The phenomenon, known as coral bleaching because the reefs turn bone white when the colourful algae that give the coral its colour and food is lost, has been reported throughout south east Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.

Divers and scientists have described huge areas of previously pristine reef being turned into barren white undersea landscapes off the coast of Thailand and Indonesia.

The popular island tourist destination the Maldives have also suffered severe bleaching. Reefs in the Caribbean could also be under threat.

High ocean temperatures this year are being blamed for the bleaching, which experts fear could be worse than a similar event in 1998 which saw an estimated 16 per cent of the world's reefs being destroyed.
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Binoculars

UK: Swarm of 30,000 Bees That "Turned the Sky Black"

Laura Roberts
The Telegraph
Fri, 16 Jul 2010 02:30 UTC
Image
© Masons
After an hour the bees clumped together into a 2ft long 'grape' on a nearby 10ft high conifer tree before flying away
A swarm of 30,000 bees surrounded a home in Lincolnshire "turning the sky black".

Phil Sanderson, 34, said the sound of the insects was the equivalent to "a crowd of people blowing vuvuzelas".

The swarm initially swirled around the father of three's home so loudly that he couldn't hear his partner Serena Reed, 34, talking.

After an hour the bees clumped together into a 2ft long 'grape' on a nearby 10ft high conifer tree before flying away.

Mr Sanderson, a mail order catalogue worker who photographed the bees at home in Pinchbeck, near Spalding, Lincs., said the noise sounded "exactly like being at a World Cup game".
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Fish

Scientists Discover Bizarre Prehistoric Creatures Under Great Barrier Reef


The Telegraph
Thu, 15 Jul 2010 05:13 UTC
Image
© Barcroft
A deep-sea anglerfish
Australian scientists have discovered bizarre prehistoric sea life thousands of feet below the Great Barrier Reef, in an unprecedented mission to document species under threat from ocean warming.

Ancient sharks, giant oil fish, swarms of crustaceans and a primitive shell-dwelling squid species called the Nautilus were among the astonishing life captured by remote controlled cameras at Osprey Reef.

Justin Marshall, the lead researcher, said his team had also found several unidentified fish species, including "prehistoric six-gilled sharks" using special lowlight sensitive cameras which were custom designed to trawl the ocean floor, 4,593ft (1,400m) below sea level.

"Some of the creatures that we've seen we were sort of expecting, some of them we weren't expecting, and some of them we haven't identified yet," said Mr Marshall, from the University of Queensland, Australia.
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Bizarro Earth

Thousands of Fish Try to "Commit Suicide" Near Xiamen Binhai Park


What's On Xiamen
Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:51 UTC
Suicidal Fish
© What's On Xiamen
Tens of thousands of small fish kept jumping out the sea near Xiamen Binhai Park
for 15 minutes Wednesday afternoon.
Tens of thousands of fish kept jumping out of the sea near Xiamen Binhai Park Wednesday afternoon for 15 minutes due to unknown reasons, reports the Strait Herald.

"That was too weird, it seems they were trying to kill themselves", said Mr. Wu, a nearby resident, who felt quite concerned about these fish.

At about 1:30 pm on 14th July, Mr. Wu was walking around Xiamen Haibin Park when he saw this strange phenomenon.

At the very beginning, only some fish appeared near the surface. After a while, tens of thousands of fish gathered together and moved towards the seashore. All of a sudden, all these silvery small fish jumped up together to almost one metre high.
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Bizarro Earth

Top China miner pollutes river leading to massive fish kill


Terra Daily / Agence-France Presse
Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:11 UTC
Image
© AFP
Dead fish wash up on the beach of Hong Kong's Lamma Island. Pollution from a mine owned by a top gold producer has severely contaminated a river in southeastern China, leading to a massive fish kill, the government and state media said Monday.
Pollution from a mine owned by a top gold producer has severely contaminated a river in southeastern China, leading to a massive fish kill, the government and state media said Monday.

Seepage from a mining waste pond owned by the Zijinshan Copper Mine has contaminated the Ding River and a reservoir in Fujian, the province's environmental protection bureau said in a statement.

The leak was first detected on July 3, prompting the bureau to issue an emergency order to begin monitoring it, the statement said.

Xinhua news agency said the mine is owned by the Hong Kong-listed Zijin Mining Group Co, China's largest gold producer.

Pollution from the sludge pond has killed or poisoned 1.89 million kilogrammes (4.2 million pounds) of fish on the Ding River and in the Mianhuatan reservoir, the report said.

The smell of dead fish was discernible 10 kilometres (six miles) from the reservoir, it added.

"The county government has issued a circular asking residents to turn in poisoned fish for collective disposal," the report quoted local villagers as saying, adding that villagers would be compensated for the fish they collect.
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Arrow Down

Red Squirrels Dying After Picking Up Human Bacteria From Animal Lovers

Laura Roberts
The Telegraph
Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:00 UTC
Image
© Press Association
Red squirrels may be picking up deadly human bacteria
Red squirrels may be being "killed with kindness" after picking up human bacteria from animal lovers who leave food out for them, wildlife experts have claimed.

The bacteria, which is found on the hands and skin of humans, has been found in a number of dead squirrels displaying lesions and infections.

However, scientists were not clear whether the infection was the primary cause of death.

Wildlife experts said that the problem was particularly evident on the Isle of Wight, the only place in Britain with no competing grey squirrels, and where residents commonly leave food out for red squirrels.
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