Animals
S


Alarm Clock

US: Pelican deaths caused by storm-linked food scarcity

Mike Lee
Union Tribune
Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:02 UTC
A shortage of food is largely to blame for the hundreds of sick or dead brown pelicans that have appeared in recent weeks along California's coastline, wildlife researchers confirmed yesterday.

A series of winter storms since late January has driven anchovies and sardines deeper into the ocean - too deep for the birds to catch, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife said. Some pelicans they studied had little to no body fat and unusual foods in their digestive tracts.
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Attention

Australia: Kangaroos victims of factory fluoride

Deborah Gough
Age
Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:13 UTC
Scores of starving and pain-ridden kangaroos have been culled after developing tooth and bone deformities from breathing and ingesting fluoride emissions.

Many more are believed to be suffering from growths that will kill them.

The affected kangaroos are living near the Alcoa aluminium smelter in Portland, in the state's south-west, and the Austral Bricks factory at Craigieburn.

Autopsies performed at Melbourne University on 49 kangaroos culled at Alcoa on a single day last year found all but one were suffering from flurosis, which leads to excessive bone growths, or lesions, on joints in the paws, ankles and calves.

It can also cause tooth and jaw deformities that hinder eating and foraging.
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Bizarro Earth

Bees Hurt by Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

Roger Alford
The Associated Press
Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:55 UTC
Frankfort, Kentucky - Mountaintop mining has obliterated flowering trees and plants that honeybees need for food in the central Appalachians, and some Kentucky lawmakers are asking coal companies to plant pollen-producing vegetation when they finish digging.

A nonbinding measure passed Thursday in a House committee.

Before the vote, Tammy Horn, a bee researcher at Eastern Kentucky University's Environmental Research Institute, exhorted lawmakers to approve the measure that would "encourage" coal companies to plant a variety of nectar- and pollen-producers on mountains that have been deforested by mining.
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Fish

Florida's Wildlife Freezing to Death

Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News
Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:45 UTC
Image
© Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation CommissionMore than 200 manatees have washed ashore since January, and carcasses are still turning up.
Manatees, sea turtles and fish in the Sunshine State are dying in record numbers because of the unusually long cold snap.

With temperature in central Florida dipping down again this week, conservationists are bracing for more animal and plant deaths due to unusually long winter cold snaps that have resulted in record wildlife losses.

Manatees have been among the hardest hit, with over 200 killed in January alone, and carcasses continuing to wash ashore. The highest number of manatee deaths for a single calendar year in Florida waters is 429, so local officials are closely monitoring these endangered marine mammals.

"Manatees can experience what is known as cold stress syndrome when they are exposed to water below 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degree Celsius) for long periods," Florida's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute spokesperson Carli Segelson told Discovery News. "This can result in death, or weaken manatees, leaving them more vulnerable to other health issues later."
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Binoculars

New Zealand Teen Fights Off Shark with Body Board


The Associated Press
Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:21 UTC
A teenage New Zealand girl bitten by a shark bashed it over the head with her body board until it let her go, she said.

Lydia Ward, 14, was in waist-deep water with her brother on Monday at Oreti Beach on the country's South Island when the shark - believed to be a broad-nosed seven gill shark - grabbed her hip. She said she did not notice the shark until the attack was under way.

"I saw my brother's face and turned to the side and saw this large gray thing in the water so I just hit it on the head with a boogie board," Ward told National Radio, adding that she had read about a surfer who fought off a shark attack with her board. "That's what she did, and that's what you're meant to do."
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Alarm Clock

US: Deadly fish virus now found in all Great Lakes


Media-Newswire.com
Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:42 UTC
A deadly fish virus that was first discovered in the Northeast in 2005 has been found for the first time in fish from Lake Superior, report Cornell researchers. That means that the virus has now been documented in all of the Great Lakes.

The viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus ( VHSV ), which causes fatal anemia and hemorrhaging in many fish species, poses no threat to humans, said Paul Bowser, professor of aquatic animal medicine at Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine.
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Bizarro Earth

Coral in Florida Keys suffers lethal hit from cold

Curtis Morgan
The Miami Herald
Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:54 UTC
Bitter cold this month may have wiped out many of the shallow water corals in the Keys.

Scientists have only begun assessments, with dive teams looking for "bleaching" that is a telltale indicator of temperature stress in sensitive corals, but initial reports are bleak. The impact could extend from Key Largo through the Dry Tortugas west of Key West, a vast expanse that covers some of the prettiest and healthiest reefs in North America.

Given the depth and duration of frigid weather, Meaghan Johnson, marine science coordinator for The Nature Conservancy, expected to see losses. But she was stunned by what she saw when diving a patch reef 2.5 miles off Harry Harris Park in Key Largo.

Star and brain corals, large species that can take hundreds of years to grow, were as white and lifeless as bones, frozen to death. There were also dead sea turtles, eels and parrotfish littering the bottom.
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Bizarro Earth

15 Whales Die Beached in New Zealand, 33 Coaxed to Sea

Ray Lilley
The Associated Press
Sun, 24 Jan 2010 02:01 UTC
Rescuers in New Zealand managed to coax 33 beached whales back out into deep waters Sunday, but another 15 of the pod died, a conservation official said.

The 48 pilot whales stranded Saturday at Port Levy on South Island, but scores of volunteers joined Department of Conservation workers to refloat them off the shallow, muddy inlet, said the department's community relations manager, Grant Campbell.

It was the third mass stranding on the New Zealand coast this summer. Some 125 pilot whales died in the two other beachings, while 43 were returned to the ocean.

Campbell said that in the latest incident, residents were quick to help after spotting the whales apparently feeding in the inlet before they stranded.
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Arrow Up

Canada's polar bear population has doubled in last decade: 'Becoming a problem,' locals say

Kirk Myers
Seminole County Environmental News Examiner
Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:52 UTC
Image
© BBCSo I was in the area...
Polar bears, the lumbering carnivores of the arctic, continue to be the poster bear - er, child - for global warmers everywhere who are convinced the baby seal munchers are being driven to extinction by man's irresponsible release of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Next to whales, the cuddly fur balls enjoy a special place on the "Animals to Love" list. Grown-ups adore them (provided it's from a safe distance), and grade-school kids who can't find Greenland or Manitoba on a map raid their penny jars to save them.

But are the denizens of the deep north facing extinction? Are they in desperate need of saving? It depends on who you ask.
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Igloo

Florida: Thousands of Snook Fish Dead in Cold Snap's Wake

Del Milligan
The Ledger
Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:27 UTC
Snook fish
© Stacey Lynn Brown
Thousands of dead snook are belly up on the surface in the Tampa Bay area and around the southern half of Florida, with hundreds more still floating up off the bottom along both coasts as the thermometer rises.

"If you went around and looked at some of these fish, you would cry," said Capt. Scott Moore of Anna Maria.

The coldest water temperatures in Tampa Bay since 1989 took a heavy toll on the tropical snook, which died when the water stayed in the low 50s and upper 40s for 10 straight days.
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