Animals
S


Attention

Best of the Web: US: Mysterious Cape Cod Dolphin Beachings Continue

Jim Axelrod
CBS News
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:06 UTC
video
© cbsnewsClick here to watch video.
More than 100 dolphins have stranded themselves along Cape Cod's 25-mile coastline in the last three weeks, and the number is growing.

Rescuers there say it's just about the worst they've ever seen. And scientists are still looking for answers. The alarming number of dolphins beaching themselves along the 25-mile Cape Cod coastline was baffling scientists for a third week.

On Monday, they responded to a call that three dolphins were approaching shore. Two swam away unharmed, but one got too close to the beach and needed intervention by rescuers from the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

The animal later died and, along with three more carcasses discovered over the weekend, the number of dolphin beachings swelled to 102, nearly the normal amount for an entire year.

Katie Moore, manager of the Marine Mammal Rescue Team, says she simply doesn't know why this is happening.
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Eye 2

US, Florida: Pythons Apparently Wiping Out Everglades Mammals

Matt Sedensky
The Associated Press
Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:36 UTC
Image
© The Associated Press/National Park Service/Lori OberhoferA Burmese python is wrapped around an American alligator in Everglades National Park, Fla.
A burgeoning population of huge pythons - many of them pets that were turned loose by their owners when they got too big - appears to be wiping out large numbers of raccoons, opossums, bobcats and other mammals in the Everglades, a study says.

The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that sightings of medium-size mammals are down dramatically - as much as 99 percent, in some cases - in areas where pythons and other large, non-native constrictor snakes are known to be lurking.

Scientists fear the pythons could disrupt the food chain and upset the Everglades' environmental balance in ways difficult to predict.

"The effects of declining mammal populations on the overall Everglades ecosystem, which extends well beyond the national park boundaries, are likely profound," said John Willson, a research scientist at Virginia Tech University and co-author of the study.

Tens of thousands of Burmese pythons, which are native to Southeast Asia, are believed to be living in the Everglades, where they thrive in the warm, humid climate. While many were apparently released by their owners, others may have escaped from pet shops during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and have been reproducing ever since.
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X

Australia Shark Attacks: 3 Swimmers Attacked in Unusual First 3 Weeks of 2012

Julia Greenberg
International Business Times
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:52 UTC
Image
© ReutersThere have been an increased number of shark attacks in Australia this year with three attacks occurring in the past three weeks of 2012. David Pickering, a 26-year-old snorkeling guide, was the latest victim of a shark attack on Thursday.
There have been an increased number of shark attacks in Australia this year, with three attacks occurring in the first three weeks of 2012. David Pickering, a 26-year-old snorkeling guide, was the latest victim of a shark attack on Thursday.

Pickering was leading a group of snorkelers, a couple and their two children, in a lagoon at Western Australia's Coral Bay, when he was attacked. A 10-foot tiger shark swam up to the snorkeling guide and sunk its teeth into his arms.

"I turned around and boom, there he was," Pickering told The Associated Press. "[The force] was enough to actually bring me forward and under him because I scraped my knee on his belly."

After the shark bit him, Pickering punched the animal with his other arm. The creature quickly backed off. The AP reports Pickering warned the other snorkelers to get out of the water and then swam 300 feet back to shore.

Comment: Not only in Australia. Since August, 2011, SOTT has been adding items to a growing list of unusually aggressive behavior exhibited by infamous marine predators all over the world.

UK: Did the same shark which killed British honeymooner in Seychelles in front of his new wife also kill French tourist just two weeks ago?
Two Shark Attacks in Russia in One Day
Mystery of five shark attacks in a week
Another shark attack reported in Russia's Far East
Riding their luck in California, US: 12ft Great White shark pictured in San Diego wave just feet away from oblivious surfers

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X

US: Dolphin, seal deaths plague New England

Jay Lindsay
MSNBC
Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:25 UTC
Image
© Julia Cumes / Associated PressTwo stranded common dolphins wait to be transported to a waiting vehicle by a team from the International Fund for Animal Welfare at Herring River in Wellfleet, Mass., on Thursday.
Whether they got lost, sick or swam astray chasing food, 77 dolphins that beached on Cape Cod in recent weeks have died, the second time in three months New England has seen a mass of marine mammal deaths.

Now, scientists are trying to figure out why.

They're also researching whether there's any connection to a die-off this fall of 162 harbor seals, whose carcasses were found between northern Massachusetts and Maine.

Scientists later determined the seal deaths were linked to an influenza virus similar to one found in birds but never before seen in seals. In a letter earlier this month, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and Rep. William Keating asked Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to investigate "any common cause" between the dolphin and seal deaths.
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Snowman

US: Snowy owls soar south from Arctic in rare mass migration

Laura Zuckerman
Reuters
Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:43 UTC
snowy white owl
© U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Bird enthusiasts are reporting rising numbers of snowy owls from the Arctic winging into the lower 48 states this winter in a mass southern migration that a leading owl researcher called "unbelievable."

Thousands of the snow-white birds, which stand 2 feet tall with 5-foot wingspans, have been spotted from coast to coast, feeding in farmlands in Idaho, roosting on rooftops in Montana, gliding over golf courses in Missouri and soaring over shorelines in Massachusetts.

A certain number of the iconic owls fly south from their Arctic breeding grounds each winter but rarely do so many venture so far away even amid large-scale, periodic southern migrations known as irruptions.

"What we're seeing now -- it's unbelievable," said Denver Holt, head of the Owl Research Institute in Montana.
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Magic Wand

Birds Invade US Town: La Grange, Kentucky Swarmed By Black Birds


Huffington Post
Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:21 UTC
Residents in a Kentucky town are saying "Get the flock out of here" to thousands of black birds that fill the sky each night.

At dusk, the birds take flight in La Grange, Ky., and create what some locals describe as a "cloud of birds," according to TV station WAVE. The birds nest down in a wooded area for the night and depart each morning in a huge pack, reports said.


Fine-feathered friends, they're not. Residents complain that they're constantly cleaning up after the avian arrivistes, who started showing up last November in the community northeast of Louisville. Nearly everyone has heard their town compared to Alfred Hitchcock's classic film The Birds.
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Cloud Lightning

Australia: 5,000 fish found dead in Perth's Swan River


ABC News
Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:53 UTC
Swan River
© ABC NewsLow oxygen levels have killed 5,000 fish in the Swan River
Low oxygen levels and hot weather are believed to have killed thousands of fish in Perth's Swan River.

About 5,000 dead fish were discovered between the Middle Swan Bridge and the Ellen Brook in the upper reaches of the river.

Swan River Trust spokesman Mark Cugley says recent rain and hot weather have decreased oxygen levels in the waterway and that particular area is outside the reach of the river's oxygenation plants.

Comment: In other words, it rained a lot in Perth.

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Evil Rays

Australia: Stingray bites boy at theme park


ABC News
Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:47 UTC
Stingray
© UnknownStingrays can fly... almost
A six-year-old boy has been bitten on the finger by a stingray at a theme park on Queensland's Gold Coast.

It happened at a Sea World exhibit yesterday morning.

The boy's wound was treated by a nurse at the theme park and he was taken to hospital as a precaution.

Sea World says it is the first time such an injury has occurred since the Ray Reef attraction opened in 2009.
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Bizarro Earth

New Zealand: More Whales Stranded at Farewell Spit


Australian Associated Press
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:21 UTC
Stranded Whales
© AAPPilot whales are stranded in the South Island for the third time in two months.
A group of whales has been stranded around Farewell Spit, near the top of the South Island, for the third time in two months.

About 90 pilot whales were seen milling close to the shore around noon on Monday and have since grounded on a receding tide, Project Jonah chief executive Kimberly Muncaster says.

Ms Muncaster says volunteers will care for the whales until nightfall, when the fast incoming tide will be a danger to the people.

"There's a small chance the whales may refloat on tonight's high tide at 11pm, but we will be back at first light to assess the situation and assist DOC (the Department of Conservation) in their rescue response," she said on Monday.

"Hopefully we'll be able to keep as many whales as possible alive until nightfall."
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Bizarro Earth

Rare Sea Creature Climbs onto Seattle Woman's Dock

Andrea Mustain
OurAmazingPlanet
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:06 UTC
Ribbon Seal
© LDAHey, stranger! This guy must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.

A Seattle resident recently got a big surprise when she discovered a strange-looking furry visitor on her property.

"She woke up and it was lying on her dock, hanging out and sleeping - just chilling," said Matthew Cleland, district supervisor in western Washington for the USDA's Wildlife Services, and the recipient of a photo of the bizarre intruder.

"I thought, 'That's an interesting-looking creature,'" Cleland told OurAmazingPlanet. "I had no idea what it was."

A quick glance through a book in his office soon revealed it was a ribbon seal, an Arctic species that spends most of its life at sea, swimming the frigid waters off Alaska and Russia.

Somehow, the seal turned up on the woman's property, about a mile from the mouth of the Duwamish River, a highly industrialized waterway that cuts through southern Seattle. In 2001, the EPA declared the last 5.5 miles (9 kilometers) of the river a Superfund site - an area contaminated with hazardous substances in need of cleanup.

The sighting was "pretty exciting," said Arctic seal researcher Peter Boveng, leader of the National Marine Mammal Laboratory's Polar Ecosystems Program. "It's really unusual."
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