Animals
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Bats Invasion: Colony of fruit bats in northern Australian town prompt disease warning

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© Agence France-PresseHundreds of thousands of fruit bats like these arrived in the town in late February
A town in northern Australia has been invaded by more than 250,000 bats, prompting warnings of a potentially fatal disease related to rabies.

The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) warned residents in Katherine to stay away from the fruit bats, which could carry the Australian Bat Lyssavirus.

The disease can be transmitted to people if they are bitten or scratched.

Authorities have closed down the main sports ground in the town 300 km south of Darwin in the Northern Territory.

The colony of fruit bats - little red flying foxes - arrived in the town late last month. In recent days numbers have begun to fall but large numbers continue to roost on the outskirts of town, reports the BBC's Phil Mercer.

Stop

Weather bomb hits New Zealand, afterwards, huge eels found swimming in the streets

They are one of the least attractive of all fish species and are normally found lurking in oceans and rivers.

But when part of New Zealand was hit by a 'weather bomb' recently, a number of eels suddenly sprung up in some surprising locations.

Residents in one street in Masterton, Wellington, were left shocked to discover dozens of the slimy creatures swimming in large puddles and gutters in the road.

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© YoutubeSlimy: When part of New Zealand was hit by a 'weather bomb' recently, a number of eels suddenly sprung up in the streets
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© YoutubeWhat lies beneath: Residents in a street in Masterton, Wellington, discovered dozens of eels swimming in large puddles and gutters
People could be spotted in the streets attempting to help the eels back into deeper water as a number became stranded on the side of the road.

It follows days of appalling weather in the region.

Fish

Sharks: Galapagos Species New?

Scientists have announced the discovery of a new species of spotted, bottom-dwelling shark near the Galapagos Islands, where astonished researchers saw it from a submersible.

The newly named species, Bythaelurus giddingsi, is a kind of catshark. Such animals had never been seen near the famed Eastern Pacific archipelago until researchers descended some 1,600 feet (500 meters) to the ocean floor.
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© Unknown
"We looked out the window and saw this spotted catshark and said, 'What the heck is that?'" recalled John McCosker, chairman of aquatic biology at the California Academy of Sciences, and lead author on a paper describing the shark. "It was very exciting because we didn't expect that that genus had a species of shark living in the Galapagos."

Bizarro Earth

Mass dolphin rescue witnessed off Rio coast

Rio De Janeiro - A dramatic video showing 30 beached dolphins being rescued by beachgoers in Brazil has become an internet sensation. The video shows dolphins appearing out of nowhere and suddenly beaching en masse on the Rio de Janeiro state coastline. They were apparently caught in a strong ocean current.

Stunned beachgoers in swimming trunks at first look on as the dolphins high-pitched squeals are heard. But within seconds, people quickly race into the surf to help the dolphins.

Dozens of people are seen swimming into the ocean and dragging the mammals by their tails in an effort to them back into deeper waters. And the effort this past Monday was successful. After all the dolphins were rescued, the crowd of dolphin-savers and onlookers broke into cheers.


Blackbox

More than 400 dead grey seals off Cape Breton's eastern coastline

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© Unknown
Nova Scotia - The seal carcasses, some without eyes from scavenging seagulls and other wildlife, are on the beaches of Hay Island, a short distance from Scatarie Island.

Federal fisheries department seal biologist Mike Hammill said the mammals showed no sign of physical trauma other than the wounds inflicted by predators after death.

"They weren't killed by people, so it's something else that's come along," he said from Charlottetown following a tour of the island Sunday.

"The majority of them are weaned pups and they look in fairly good shape. They're fat, didn't seem to have any external markings on them."

Parts of the seals were taken for testing to the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown. Hammill said it could be weeks before a possible cause of death is identified.

Nuke

Fish Contaminated with Fukushima Radiation Detected in Sri Lanka

contaminated fish sign
© n/a
The Atomic Energy Authority (AEA) has detected fish consignments imported to Sri Lanka that were contaminated from radio active substances in the seas following the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, AEA chairman Dr Ranjith Jayawardene said.

He told the Daily News that the AEA had been checking all imported fish consignments to Sri Lanka since the Fukushima incident to ensure these were safe for human consumption.

He noted that the AEA discovered salmon and other fish consignments which were slightly contaminated by radioactive substances last November and also last week during checks. The container load imported in November was released after a laboratory test to ensure that the level of radioactive substances is harmless for human consumption. This load included fish from the seas off China.

The fish consignment imported to the country last week has been retained by the Customs until a special laboratory test. The chairman said that the results of this test would be released within two days.

Magic Wand

Unusual animal behaviour: Otter cubs wander into post office and restaurant in Scotland

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© SPCARoy, one of two otters cubs to be rescued.
Two otter cubs have been rescued after wandering into a post office and nearby restaurant.

Male cub Roy, who is 12 weeks old, was found hiding underneath the counter of a post office in the village of Caol, Fort William, on February 16.

A few days later, 10-week-old female Linnhe wandered into the nearby seafood restaurant Crannog on February 20.

The pair are not thought to be siblings but are likely to have come from the same area of water and have been named after a nearby loch and river.

They are now being cared for by the Scottish SPCA at the charity's Wildlife Rescue Centre in Fife.

Centre manager Colin Seddon said: "It's highly unusual for one otter to walk into a public place, let alone two.

Bizarro Earth

SOTT Focus: The Cs Hit List 06: Let's Do the Planetary Twist to the Tune of the Brothers Heliopolis

OK, it's time for more weirdness. As we covered in a recent SOTT Report, accounts and recordings of strange noises heard all over the world went semi-viral on YouTube in January this year, and some are even receiving mainstream media coverage. Some YouTube pundits claim they're all faked, a couple of scientists say they're 'normal' and nothing to worry about, and many are freaking out as the phenomenon is feeding the '2012-apocalypse-oh-my-God-we're-all-gonna-die' hysteria. So what's really going on?

The hype appears to have started with these videos from Kiev, Ukraine, posted on 3 August and 11 August 2011, respectively. (Although, as we'll see later, these were not the first accounts.)



(See here for a translation of the uploader's account of the sounds and analysis and here for a summary of the associated thread, with additional analyses and accounts.)

Dozens of videos have been uploaded since then, some obviously faked, others perhaps not. For example, at least 28 videos posted in the months since Kiev obviously use the sound from the original video played over random video footage, sometimes with staged 'Oh-my-God-what-is-that?' dialogue. And, no, as far as I can tell, none of them use samples from the films Red State or War of the Worlds, as some have claimed. The similarity is striking (trumpet-like blasts, metallic rumbles and such), but truth has been known to resemble fiction. And it wouldn't be the first time that similar strange noises have been heard, both in recent times and the murky depths of history recorded in myth and legend.

Attention

Mutated, Two-Headed Trout Found in Idaho, US

Mutated Fish
© Outdoor Life.com

I'm not a scientist -- I don't even play one on TV.

But even with my limited knowledge of the scientific world, I know enough to say without fear of reprisal that two-headed fish are not generally an indicator of a healthy watershed. The two-headed fish in question is a trout and was just one of many abnormal fish that were regulated to an appendix of a scientific study commissioned by the J.R. Simplot Company.

Despite the presence of fish with two heads and fish with facial, fin, and egg deformities, the mining company's report concluded that the waters it is accused of polluting in southern Idaho are fairly safe. So safe in fact that the company feels it would be just peachy to allow the water's high selenium (a metal byproduct of mining that is toxic to wildlife) levels to remain as is, even though they are higher than are permitted under regulatory guidelines.

In a move that's stranger than a multi-headed fish, the EPA actually described the mining company's report as "comprehensive." This led many scientists to shake their single head in disbelief and call for further investigation. Among those that found the EPA's assessment fishy was Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer of California, who heads the chamber's Environment and Public Works Committee. According to the New York Times, she requested the federal Fish and Wildlife Service to go over the initial report. The agency did and concluded that the study was "biased" and "highly questionable."

Info

Rare whale caught on film for first time

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© David Donnelly/antarctica.gov.auA Shepherd's beaked whale.
Australian scientists have captured what they believe to be the first video of an extremely rare whale, the Shepherd's beaked whale, which has been spotted for sure only a handful of times since its discovery a little over 70 years ago.

A pod of the unusual cetacean, which can grow as long as a bus (7 metres or 21 ft) and weigh as much as a sedan car (up to 3 tonnes) was spotted frolicking amongst dolphins and pilot whales in the Eastern Bass Strait, off the coast of Victoria and Tasmania, in January.

"What is so unique about this sighting is, we got so many photographs and HD video, so really it's indisputable," said Mike Double, a research scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division, a government research unit for Antarctica.

Known as Tasmacetus shepherdi, the whales are distinguished by their melon-shaped foreheads, fat bellies and a prominent beak. They were first discovered in 1937 but because they are an offshore species, they have remained elusive.