Animals
S


Attention

Australia: Victoria Farmers Prepare for Next Locust Plague


The Sydney Morning Herald
Mon, 03 Jan 2011 00:00 UTC
Victoria's farmers are preparing for a "second generation" of the locust plague that has swarmed across the state since spring. Hundreds of rural landowners across northern and western Victoria have reported locust egg beds of up to 15 metres long.

The Department of Primary Industries (DPI) has had about 430 reports of locust egg beds, which, once hatched, will become the "second generation" of the locust plague. DPI state locust controller John Balfour said most of the reports of egg beds were across the north, central and Wimmera areas of the state, with some reported in other areas.

"The current concentration of egg beds is across the Horsham, Ararat, Stawell areas, through to Castlemaine, Bendigo and then on through Shepparton and further east towards Rutherglen and Wodonga," Mr Balfour told AAP.

The egg beds can be up to 15 metres long, consisting of eggs laid by the plague of locusts that have swarmed across Victoria since spring. A farmer in Katunga, in the state's central north, has also reported the first hatching of a second generation egg bed.
Read More...
Eye 1

Dead birds in Sweden killed by 'external blows'


CNN
Wed, 05 Jan 2011 22:47 UTC
dead birds

A large number of dead birds were found in the city of Falkoping, Sweden, Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, according to a press release on the website of the Swedish National Veterinary Institute.

Autopsies were peformed on five of the birds. The institute said they died due to "sudden, hard external blows," according to the press release. They had no signs of infection or other illnesses, and there were no external signs indicating what killed them.

"We have determined that the birds have died from severe internal bleedings caused by external blows," said the Institute's Marianne Elvander.
Read More...
Eye 1

Dead Birds in China: Birds continue to fall around the world - may be a precursor to reversal of poles


chou4.com
Wed, 05 Jan 2011 20:07 UTC
dead birds, china
© unknown
Online Translation

On January 2 in cities and towns of Arkansas, more than 1,000 blackbirds fell to the ground from the sky, and they were dead! The American Wildlife Service is confused why the birds fell out of the sky.

Yesterday morning, the king master was walking to work when an eagle suddenly hit him and died. Birds dropping from the sky, such a small probability event, happened most recently in Geleshan, sporadically, and continued for months. These birds out of the sky is only the beginning, now even the eagle is falling. Residents are beginning to feel unrest and scared.

At the Forestry University in Harbin, thousands of sparrows were found in the woods near death, said to be frozen to death.

We know that birds navigate by the Earth's magnetic field - if the magnetic field changes, birds may fall. That migratory birds rely on the body's "biological compass" to determine direction is an "open secret", but it is not clear how birds perceive the magnetic field.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Faenza Italy: The Rain of Death Turns Blue - Thousands of Doves Dying


Geapress
Wed, 05 Jan 2011 19:14 UTC
dead dove
Translation by Sott editors

There are certainly many hundreds, probably thousands, of collared dove who are dying at this moment in Faenza. They are in heaps in the flower beds, crushed by machinery in the streets, horribly hung from trees like Christmas balls. And many, many more, as told by the well-informed, are found in industrial-fenced zones.

The WWF has collected more of these birds, not all already dead. A dozen, in fact, have been sent to the Center of Recovery 'Il Pettirosso' in Modena, where those arriving are still alive but died shortly after. Overall, a mystery. Inside the beak, in some animals, the staining was of a strange blue.

What could have caused it? Both the doves collected by the Forestry and those sent by the WWF to the Center of Modena, have been delivered to the 'Istituto Zooprofilattico' of Emilia Romagna and Lombardy. Nobody, however, likes to deliver an opinion on this issue and for the analysis may take a week. Is it possible that the Collared doves... have been dying of stomachache? So someone would have argued (see article, GeaPress). In general, blue is a sign of hypoxia, caused for example by suffocation. The bluish tint, however, is also typical of potassium cyanide, a deadly poison used, for example, from poachers. Cyanide, however, also causes hypoxia, .... maybe a dove with an upset stomach would die suffocated. Another poison appears bluish in some types of rat poison grains. However, believing that the doves have died choking could be a faulty guess. And why only them? On the site there are only doves, but the pigeons in other places are likely to eat the same seed mesh that certain industries stack up around Faenza? So why they do not die from choking too?
Read More...
Black Cat

Flock of Dead Blackbirds Found In Wilson County Tennessee

Deanna Lambert
WSMV
Wed, 05 Jan 2011 18:52 UTC
dead,birds,tennessee
© wsmv
Now, more that 100 dead birds were recently found in Wilson County, causing the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency to investigate.

A resident notified the agency Tuesday afternoon after he spotted dozens of dead birds along Highway 70 north in Lebanon a few days ago.

"It's kind of a strange, odd thing. It plays into some of the things that have been happening in other places," said Lt. Jim Hooper of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

TWRA officials found 120 dead blackbirds in the Spring Creek area when they investigated the situation on Wednesday.

"We searched the adjoining fields and everywhere else, and there are no other birds except in this one very localized area," said Hooper. "The birds have definitely been dead 5 or 6 days."
Read More...
Radar

Bird deaths: Did NWS Radar Capture Startled Flock?

Frank Roylance
Maryland Weather
Wed, 05 Jan 2011 14:03 UTC
Radar Beebe
© Plymouth State Weather Center
Weather radar in Little Rock, Ark. may have captured an image of a flock of birds as they rose from nighttime roosts near Beebe, Ark. on New Year's Eve. Thousands of redwing blackbirds were later found dead on the ground nearby.

Such radar images of bird flocks are not unusual. Weather radar sites near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Delaware sometimes capture the radar reflections of flocks of birds as they rise into the sky at sunrise on summer mornings.

Last night, Steve Zubrick, the science officer out at the National Weather Service forecast office in Sterling, Virginia, sent me a link to a radar image recorded beginning at 10:21 p.m. Central Time in Little Rock. That's about a half hour before reports began coming in about dead birds falling from the sky in Beebe.

The loop shows rainstorms moving away to the north and east of the radar. But at a spot about 25 nautical miles northeast of the radar, an unusual reflection appears, expands and moves off to the southeast with the prevailing winds. It's the green blob on the still radar image above.

"Could these returns be birds disturbed from the nightly roosting sites?" Steve asks.

Comment: So what are the chances they actually captured a meteor explosion on radar? See the article below for details:

And They March! The Strange Tale of the Beebe Blackbirds

Read More...
Attention

More birds fall out of the sky, this time in Sweden

Vivian Tse
The Local
Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:46 UTC
Christer Olofsson
© Björn Larsson Rosvall/ScanpixChrister Olofsson, rescue preparedness director, with dead bird in Falköping.

A county veterinarian has speculated that the birds that fell from the sky in central Sweden on Tuesday may have been frightened by fireworks, then run over by a car after landing on the road in the dark.

Shortly before midnight on Tuesday, residents found 50 to 100 jackdaws on a street in Falköping southeast of Skövde. The incident echoed a number of unexplained incidents earlier this week across the southern US.

County veterinarian Robert ter Horst believes that the birds may have been literally scared to death by fireworks set off on Tuesday night.

"We have received information from local residents last night. Our main theory is that the birds were scared away because of the fireworks and landed on the road, but couldn't fly away from the stress and were hit by a car," he explained to The Local on Wednesday.

He added that they likely had difficulty orienting themselves in the dark and although they have received one report involving a vehicular collision with the birds, ter Horst believes they may have been hit by more.

"We will continue to look at whether there are other theories, but then we have to do an autopsy on the birds. The birds just now are in a car on the way to a laboratory in Uppsala. We don't know exactly what happened yet, but we will continue the investigation," he added.

ter Horst noted that he has also received some reports about pigeons, but the incident has happened too quickly to assume that it is related to the untimely demise of the jackdaws.
Read More...
Igloo

40,000 'devil' crabs wash up on Kent coast after dying from hypothermia in freezing sea


Daily Mail
Wed, 05 Jan 2011 05:37 UTC
Thousands of dead crabs have washed up along the Kent coast, with environmental experts believing the cold weather in Britain is to blame.

The velvet swimming crabs - also called devil crabs - are thought to be victims of Britain's coldest December in 120 years, which left sea temperatures much lower than average.
Image
Triste hallazgo: El Dr Alasdair Bruce, uno de los expertos que estudia los cangrejos muertos. Es el segundo año seguido que las playas han quedado colmadas de cangrejos

More than 40,000 of the crabs - Britain's largest swimming crab - are littering beaches around Thanet, along with smaller numbers of whelks, sponges and anemones.

Coastal warden Tony Sykes said: 'We suspect that climate change and warmer weather has lured the crabs towards the shoreline.

'They could also be attracted to these waters looking for kelp, to feed on.

'We believe the sudden temperature drop causes the crabs to suffer from hypothermia and die.'

It is the second year in a row that icy temperatures have killed sea creatures in such large numbers.
Read More...
Attention

Hundreds of dead snapper washed up on New Zealand beach

Rob Kidd
Sydney Morning Herald
Wed, 05 Jan 2011 05:30 UTC
Dead snapper in New Zealand
© DesconocidoPesca del horror – peces muertos flotando y sobre las orillas en la Península de Coromandel
Hundreds of dead snapper have washed up on Coromandel beaches on the North Island of New Zealand, leaving holidaymakers perplexed.

The mysterious incident came as the southern United States was hit with a second unexplained mass bird death within a week.

People at Little Bay and Waikawau Bay, on the north-east of the peninsula, were stunned when children came out of the sea with armfuls of the fish and within minutes the shore was littered with them.

Charlotte Pearsall, whose family have lived at Little Bay for the last 30 years, said she had never seen anything like it.

"It was so surreal," she said. "It's such an incredible waste - it could've fed the whole northern tip of the Coromandel."
Read More...
Hourglass

Now HUNDREDS More Birds Fall from the Sky in Kentucky and Louisiana and Tens of THOUSANDS of Dead Fish Wash Ashore


Daily Mail Reporter
Wed, 05 Jan 2011 12:46 UTC
More dead birds and fish
© AP PhotoHundreds of dead birds lay along the side of the highway in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, about 300 miles south of the thousands dead in Arkansas
The mystery over thousands of birds raining from the sky in America deepened today after hundreds more plunged to their deaths in different parts of the country.

Scientists said that New Year's Eve fireworks might have been to blame for the 3,000 blackbirds that died in a small town in Arkansas.

But they were forced to order more tests last night after 500 birds plummeted to the ground 360 miles away in Louisiana on Monday and dozens more died in Kentucky.

And just a 100 miles away from the Arkansas mass bird kill, at least 83,000 dead and dying fish washed ashore - possibly as many as 100,000.

The Internet has been abuzz with conspiracy theories about secret government testing and a looming Armageddon.

Experts insist a link between the bizarre incidents is unlikely.

Comment: For more information and additional analysis of the strange events in Arkansas read

And They March! The Strange Tale of the Beebe Blackbirds

Read More...