Animals
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Bizarro Earth

New Zealand: Penguins wash up on East Coast


New Zealand Hearld
Sun, 01 May 2011 11:32 UTC
dead, penguins
© Te Paea ButlerPhotos of the dead penguins posted on the Te Whanau a Apanui Facebook page.

The Department of Conservation is staying tight-lipped over the deaths of a group of penguins on the East Coast.

At least 14 have been found washed up along Waihau Bay.

Anti-oil protesters claim seismic testing in the Raukumara Basin is to blame.

DOC is choosing to stay out of the debate until it knows for certain the cause of death.

It said there was a range of reasons why they could have died, and will not comment until test results have come back.

They are expected some time next week.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Second dead gray whale found in Puget Sound


Associated Press
Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:36 UTC
dead gray whale
© Mark Harrison / The Seattle TimesA research team with the Cascadia Research Collective, conducts a necropsy on a 27-foot long gray whale found Monday.

A second gray whale has been found dead in Puget Sound. KIRO-TV reports the carcass washed up Monday on a beach near Blaine.

A whale expert says it's a little unusual to have two dead gray whales in Puget Sound at the same time.

John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research in Olympia planned to take part in Tuesday's necropsy on the whale that washed ashore Monday near Blaine.
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Fish

Record number of whales, krill found in Antarctic bays


Physorg.com
Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:13 UTC
Image
© Unknown

Scientists have observed a "super-aggregation" of more than 300 humpback whales gorging on the largest swarm of Antarctic krill seen in more than 20 years in bays along the Western Antarctic Peninsula.

The sightings, made in waters still largely ice-free deep into austral autumn, suggest the previously little-studied bays are important late-season foraging grounds for the endangered whales. But they also highlight how rapid climate change is affecting the region.

The Duke University-led team tracked the super-aggregation of krill and whales during a six-week expedition to Wilhelmina Bay and surrounding waters in May 2009. They published their findings today (April 27) in the online science journal PLoS ONE.

"Such an incredibly dense aggregation of whales and krill has never been seen before in this area at this time of year," says Duke marine biologist Douglas Nowacek. Most studies have focused on whale foraging habitats located in waters farther offshore in austral summer.
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Radar

Exotic birds fly into Wales

Sion Morgan
WalesOnline
Thu, 28 Apr 2011 07:11 UTC
Image
© UnknownBee-eater
They're normally spotted in the more exotic climes of Africa, South America and the Mediterranean. But changing global climates are bringing some unusual avian visitors to Wales, as Sion Morgan reports

From the African plains to the mountains of the Himalayas, from the wilderness of Alaska to the South American jungle, it seems the world's most exotic birds are increasingly visiting our Welsh shores.

A number of exotic species are now appearing in our gardens and could soon change the landscape of the countryside forever.

Bird watching is changing and the scale of rare, colourful and plain alien species in Wales has been revealed by the Welsh Ornithological Society (WOS).
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Fish

US: Viewer shocked at dead sea life along gulf coast

Stephanie Springer
WALB
Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:41 UTC
Image

Its been a little more than a year since the gulf oil spill..and but signs are still showing. Karen Johnson paid a visit to some beaches in Mississippi, and she was shocked at what she saw.

She says she saw all types of dead sea life, everything from dolphins..fish..turtles..near the shoreline.

She says some of the creatures were rotting and had been there for days.

She wants to know what's in the water..and hope someone tests the water soon so people are aware of what they are swimming in
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Bizarro Earth

King Crabs Invade Antarctica


ScienceDaily
Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:08 UTC
king crab
© University of Alabama at BirminghamIt's like a scene out of a sci-fi movie -- thousands, possibly millions, of king crabs are marching through icy, deep-sea waters and up the Antarctic slope.
It's like a scene out of a sci-fi movie -- thousands, possibly millions, of king crabs are marching through icy, deep-sea waters and up the Antarctic slope.

"They are coming from the deep, somewhere between 6,000 to 9,000 feet down," said James McClintock, Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham Endowed Professor of Polar and Marine Biology.

Shell-crushing crabs haven't been in Antarctica, Earth's southernmost continent, for hundreds or thousands, if not millions, of years, McClintock said. "They have trouble regulating magnesium ions in their body fluids and get kind of drunk at low temperatures."

But something has changed, and these crustaceans are poised to move by the droves up the slope and onto the shelf that surrounds Antarctica. McClintock and other marine researchers interested in the continent are sounding alarms because the vulnerable ecosystem could be wiped out, he said.
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Fish

More than 40 species of fish 'at risk of extinction' in Mediterranean due to pollution


Daily Mail
Tue, 26 Apr 2011 07:21 UTC
Image
© Associated PressAt risk: The number of bluefin tunas in the Mediterranean is decreasing and they may be wiped out from the area completely

Bluefin tuna are among more than 40 species of fish in the Mediterranean which are under threat of vanishing from the region, experts warned today.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said 43 species of marine fish were assessed as being at risk of extinction in the region, largely as a result of overfishing, damage to habitat and pollution.

The latest assessment found almost half of the sharks and rays found in the Mediterranean are at risk of extinction.

In total, 15 species were considered to be in the highest-risk category, critically endangered, 14 of which were sharks and rays including all three angel shark species found in the region.

And commercial species such as Atlantic bluefin tuna and dusky groupers are endangered, the assessment found.

Species which fall into the three most at-risk categories in the Red List assessment - critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable to extinction - are considered to be under threat of dying out.
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Stop

Florida, US: Officials determine 'duck plague' is killing ducks at Crescent Lake

Leonora LaPeter Anton
St. Petersburg Times
Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:09 UTC
Walking along the edge of Crescent Lake this week, Mike Flanagan found something that has become a concern around this close-knit neighborhood: dead ducks.

In recent weeks, more than 25 Dave Bairam, a St. Petersburg environmental analyst, takes a water sample at Crescent Lake Park on Tuesday. He said tests are measuring the lake's oxygen levels.have died along the shores of the lake just north of downtown. Then on Sunday, fish started floating to the surface. Also dead.

Image
© Chris Zuppa | TimesA female mallard flies over her ducklings Tuesday at Crescent Lake Park, where residents have found more than 25 dead ducks as well as dead fish. A necropsy found duck virus enteritis, which spreads easily in droppings but not to humans.
"This is not normal," said Flanagan, president of the Crescent Lake Neighborhood Association. "Obviously our concern is, could we lose all the animals on the lake."

On Tuesday, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission performed a necropsy on one of the dead ducks.

The culprit: duck virus enteritis. Also known as duck plague.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Shark deaths in Redwood City, California spur search for cause

Kelly Zito
San Francisco Chronicle
Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:17 UTC
leopard shark
© Lance Iversen / The ChronicleA dying leopard shark thrashes around in a Redwood Shores slough. At least a dozen such sharks have been found.

At least a dozen leopard sharks have been found dead or dying within the past several days in bayfront lagoons in Redwood City, putting local researchers on alert for some kind of infection or toxic discharge in San Francisco Bay.

The deaths, including both juvenile and adult sharks, appear isolated and far less serious than previous die-offs in 2006 and 2007, which left shark carcasses strewn all over the bay, officials said. Shark experts fear there may be more of the strikingly patterned creatures floundering in Bay Area waterways and succumbing to pollution and disease.

"In the last decade, we've seen an increase in the animals trapped in culverts and pumps that used to be tidal canals or poisoned by periodic pollution events," said Sean Van Sommeran, executive director of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation, a Santa Cruz group that tracks sharks in Monterey and San Francisco bays.
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Bizarro Earth

US: 15 dead sharks wash ashore in Manatee County, Florida

Summer Smith
BayNews9
Fri, 22 Apr 2011 23:22 UTC
dead sharks
© Photo/Anna Maria Island SunThree of the sharks found dead on Manatee County beaches.

A mystery is brewing on Manatee County's beautiful beaches -- researchers are trying to figure out why sharks are washing ashore dead.

Recently more than a dozen dead sharks were found on the north ends of Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island.

"There were no real indicators of what went wrong with them," Dr. Nick Whitney, Staff Scientist for the Center for Shark Research at MOTE Marine Laboratory said. "There are no obvious signs of damage from fishing or net damage or anything like that."
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