Animals
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Bizarro Earth

UK Government Asked to Investigate New Pesticide Link to Bee Decline

Michael McCarthy
The Independent, UK
Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:00 UTC
pollen bee
© Getty ImagesA bee collects pollen from a flower in Kew Gardens
The Government is being asked to investigate a possible link between a new generation of pesticides and the decline of honey bees. It is suspected that the chemicals may be impairing the insects' ability to defend themselves against harmful parasites through grooming.

The Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, will have to answer a question in the Commons from the former Home Office minister David Hanson about whether the Government will investigate if the effect of neonicotinoids on the grooming behaviour of bees is similar to its effect on termites.

The pesticides, neonicotinoids, made by the German agribusiness giant Bayer and rapidly spreading in use, are known to be fatal to termites by damaging their ability to groom themselves and thus remove the spores of harmful fungi.

In a leaflet promoting an anti-termite insecticide, Premise 200SC, sold in Asia, the company says it is the direct effect on the insects' grooming abilities of the neonicotinoid active ingredient, imidacloprid, which eventually kills them. Now bee campaigners in Britain want to know if this mechanism could also be at work on European honey bees and other pollinating insects which are rapidly declining in numbers.
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Bizarro Earth

Florida: Dead Baby Dolphin on Innerarity Point

Debbie Williams
WKRG
Tue, 29 Mar 2011 20:51 UTC
Image
Another dead dolphin has washed up in our area, this time just across the state line in Perdido Bay on Innerarity Point. But we may have a better understanding of what's taking so long to figure out why the dolphins are dying.

Innerarity Point, Florida - "I looked and saw a baby porpoise, a terrible sight to see."

What started as a normal Tuesday morning for Chris McCune, "I came out to have my coffee, practice, play my guitar and write some songs."

That all changed when he looked down the beach.

Eleanor Milford saw it too. "I've been hearing about it but I didn't expect to see it in my own backyard and I hope we get some answers."
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Fish

New South Wales: Second fish kill in as many months

Ken Warren
Manning River Times
Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:38 UTC
Image

Dead mullet have been found floating on the surface of a Taree waterway for the second time in less than two months.

The fish could be seen at the wetland near Nulama Village at Taree North yesterday, also the site of a similar fish kill in February.

The heat and subsequent loss of oxygen from the water was blamed on that occasion but does not seem likely this time due to the much milder weather conditions.

Some of the fish were found on the banks of the wetland, suggesting they may have jumped from the water.

Experts from the Department of Fisheries were not available for comment yesterday.
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Bizarro Earth

Sea Turtle Deaths Anger Mississippi Residents

Robbie Kistner
The Huffington Post
Tue, 29 Mar 2011 20:20 UTC
dead, turtle
© Shirley Tillman

As a resident of coastal Mississippi for more than 30 years, Shirley Tillman is used to seeing a few drum fish, sea gulls or jelly fish wash up on nearby sandy shores. It's a fact of life living by the sea. But in the past few weeks Shirley has come across something she's never seen before; dead sea turtles washing up on beaches near spring break vacationers.

They are part of a growing number of dead fish, animals and birds she and other Mississippi residents have photographed washing in with the tides in recent weeks. For Shirley, a trip to the beach no longer provides the same relaxing refuge as before.

"It's very upsetting," says Shirley, a grandmother and wife of a Pass Christian home builder. "I have never found anything like this until after the oil spill. It used to be if you found a dead dolphin or turtle it was front page news around here. Now it's no big deal."
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Fish

More Dead Sealife Continues to Plague U.S. Beaches

Elena Arteaga
KTSM TV
Tue, 29 Mar 2011 05:58 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Alabama - Months after the hundreds of birds fell dead from the sky and after thousands of dead fish, crabs, sardines, dolphins, and whales washed ashore worldwide, more dead fish washed ashore in Alabama, and a dead whale washed ashore in Virginia.

There's still no cause for the hundreds of dead fish that were found dead along the gulf shores over the weekend. They were also found along the gulf state pier Saturday morning. Park officials said it was unusual to see spade fish in that area this early in the year. The dead sigh spanned about three miles of shoreline.

The Department of Wildlife and Fisheries will take the fish in for testing.
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Eye 1

Dead whale washes up in Virginia Beach


FOX 43
Mon, 28 Mar 2011 14:53 UTC
dead whale

Virgina Beach, Virginia - A dead whale, approximately 35-40 feet in length, was found washed up on the beach in Sandbridge Sunday morning.

The Virginia Aquarium's Stranding Response Team responded to the scene to secure the animal to the beach so it didn't get washed back into the ocean, said Virginia Aquarium spokesperson Joan Barns.

Barns told WAVY.com that the whale is known as a Sei (say) whale and is not very common for the area, although they do show up from time to time in local waters.

The Virginia Aquarium will conduct a necropsy (animal autopsy) on the whale tomorrow morning at low tide to determine a cause of death. Samples will be taken from the animal and sent to various institutions for general research purposes as well, said Barns.

Arrangements have been made by the Virginia Aquarium with the City of Virginia Beach to remove the whale from the beach on Monday.

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Fish

Dead fish litter beach at Alabama pier

Paige Malone
WALA
Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:38 UTC
Gulf Shores, Alabama - Laura Pfizenmayer walks the beach in Gulf Shores every morning. On Saturday, she was shocked with what she found.


"When we came down we saw dead fish. They were everywhere. I mean you don't have to find them. You can turn around and see them. They were everywhere," said Pfizenmayer.

Charles Kelly with the Gulf State Pier said they are spadefish and only spadefish. This causes him to worry
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Heart - Black

US: The New England Aquarium reports 6 dead dolphins found in a week


NECN.com
Sun, 27 Mar 2011 21:22 UTC
dead dolphin
© Unknown

Boston - The New England Aquarium says six dolphins have turned up dead on Massachusetts beaches.

The most recent was as 4-foot long, dark grey harbor porpoise that washed up with the overnight high tide on Revere Beach Saturday The aquarium says its rescue biologists handled seven harbor porpoises in a week on the Massachusetts coast.

One was found alive and is doing well at the University of New England's Marine Animal Rescue Center in Biddeford, Maine.

Despite the number of dead porpoises found in the short time, Aquarium officials say it appears to be seasonal. The harbor porpoises that were found were yearlings that were underweight and probably were only recently weaned from their mothers in the early winter.

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Blackbox

Australia: Man injured as beetles swarm Gold Coast

Jessica Johnson
News.com.au
Sat, 26 Mar 2011 05:59 UTC
Image
© seablue5
Thousands of beetles invading the Gold Coast have claimed their first victim.

Ken Tomkins, 61, was hospitalized after skidding his bicycle into a mound of dead bugs and shattering his hip, collarbone and ribs, the Gold Coast Bulletin reports.

Tomkins said he noticed the slick as he rode along The Esplanade at Surfers Paradise, but initially thought it was water or leaves.

He will be bedridden for six weeks after hitting the bugs, which were piled to the edge of the road by a council street sweeper, at about 25kph.

The water beetle invasion is a never-before-seen phenomenon that has stumped local scientists.
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Bizarro Earth

Atlantic oil spill threatens endangered penguins

Jill Lawless
Associated Press
Tue, 22 Mar 2011 17:20 UTC
Image
© OceanDoctor,org
London - Thousands of endangered penguins have been coated with oil after a cargo ship ran aground and broke up on a remote British South Atlantic territory, officials and conservationists said Tuesday.

The shipwreck also threatens the lobster fishery that provides a livelihood to one of the world's most isolated communities.

The Malta-registered MS Olivia was grounded on Nightingale Island in the Tristan da Cunha chain last week. The ship had been traveling from Brazil to Singapore and contained 1,500 metric tons (1,650 tons) of crude oil and a cargo of 60,000 metric tons (66,000 tons) of soya beans.

The ship's 22 crew members were rescued before it broke in two.

Tristan da Cunha's conservation officer, Trevor Glass, said oil was encircling Nightingale Island and called the situation "a disaster."

The territory's British administrator, Sean Burns, said more than half of about 500 birds gathered by rescue workers had been coated in oil. An environmentalist at the scene estimated that 20,000 penguins might be affected.
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