Animals
S


Bizarro Earth

Stung by losses, nation's beekeepers try to rebuild

Bill Hanna
McClatchy Newspapers
Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:08 UTC
"I can't raise enough queens; I turn down orders every day,"

Clint Walker Bees
©Jill Johnson
Clint Walker, a central Texas beekeeper

In the woods and rolling farmland of Central Texas, Clint Walker is breeding queen bees.

Stashed in nondescript boxes underneath a stand of trees, the bees could be easily missed.

But the queens are a lifeline for Walker and other commercial beekeepers, who are furiously trying to replenish their depleted hives.
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Attention

Bees overtake backyard of Staten Island home

Staten Island Advance
SI Live
Fri, 30 May 2008 23:28 UTC
Something was buzzing in Staten Island's Tottenville neighborhood yesterday morning, and it had nothing to do with gossip.

A hummer of a swarm of bees -- at least 40,000 of them -- overwhelmed the backyard of 257 Barnard Ave. at about 11 a.m.

STI Bees
©Michael Oates/Staten Island Advance
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Butterfly

Manitoba: Unusual sightings are common this spring

Bill Stilwell
Interlake Spectator
Fri, 30 May 2008 16:47 UTC


Image
©Bill Stilwell
Red fox pups frolick outside den

Unusual, unique, rare and exciting wildlife sighting are taking place throughout rural Manitoba this spring. Topping the list is a cougar sighting near Plum Coulee, but that is far from the only interesting report.

Near Deleau, Manitoba, a white-faced ibis was photographed recently. While this is unusual, these birds have been spotted at Whitewater Lake for several consecutive years. Perhaps they are expanding their range.

According to information on the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature website, the ibis is listed as "accidental" in Manitoba. Sightings are "infrequent and far outside the usual range and includes species recorded once or twice or only at very great intervals."
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Ladybug

Last flight of the honeybee?

Alison Benjamin
The Guardian
Sat, 31 May 2008 05:32 UTC
A bee-less world wouldn't just mean the end of honey - Einstein said that if the honeybee became extinct, then so would mankind. Alison Benjamin reports on a very real threat.

Dave Hackenberg's bees have been on the road for four days. To reach the almond orchards of California's Central Valley, they pass through the fertile plains of the Mississippi, huge cattle ranches and oilfields in Texas, and the dusty towns of New Mexico on their 2,600-mile journey from Florida. The bees will have seen little of the dramatic landscape, being cooped up in hives stacked four high on the back of trucks. Each truck carries close to 500 hives, tethered with strong harnesses and covered with black netting to prevent the millions of passengers from escaping. When the drivers pull over to sleep, the bees have a break from the constant movement and wind speed, but there's no opportunity to look around and stretch their wings.
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Question

Bat die-off in Northeast still mysterious

Alvin Powell
Harvard News Office
Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00 UTC
With white nose syndrome mortality at 90-95 percent, species is threatened.

There'll be fewer bats in backyards across the Northeast this summer after a mysterious ailment drove starving bats from their caves in the dead of winter in a futile, desperate search for insects in the region's frozen, bug-free landscape.
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Fish

Mysterious Fish Deaths in Georgia


WCTV.tv
Tue, 27 May 2008 00:06 UTC
The state is investigating a mysterious substance that apparently killed hundreds of fish in a private pond over Memorial Day weekend.
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X

Killer elephant "Osama" shot dead in Jharkhand


Reuters
Sat, 31 May 2008 10:30 UTC
An elephant named "Osama bin Laden" that has killed more than 11 people and injured dozens over the past few months was shot dead in Jharkhand, officials said on Saturday.

The wild male elephant, had been terrorising villagers in two states, destroying their crops and homes.
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Fish

Apocalypse in the Oceans

Anneli Rufus
AlterNet
Fri, 30 May 2008 22:19 UTC
With 150 dead zones in our oceans, some the size of Ireland, author Taras Grescoe argues that there's been a massive die out of sea life.

In pictures, on CSI Miami, and to the naked eye the sea looks the same today as it ever did: blue, green or blue-green, rolling in glassy crashing curls, tormented then serene. It will look this way tomorrow, next year, arguably for eternity. No matter what freaks us out on earth, our species takes great comfort in knowing that the sea always looks exactly the same.

From up here.
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Question

Swallow deaths a mystery at California school

Melissa Pinion-Whitt
The Sun
Thu, 29 May 2008 16:55 UTC
A coach strolling along a wing of classrooms around 7 a.m. saw not a couple dead birds, but around 100. Most were juveniles and adults
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Fish

Australian fishermen haul up a 225 kg giant squid


The Associated Press
Mon, 26 May 2008 04:59 UTC
Melbourn - Australian fishermen have hauled up a six-metre-long giant squid off the country's southeastern coast.

Skipper Rangi Pene says the 225-kilogram squid was already dead when it was caught in a trawler's nets Sunday night in waters more than 500 metres deep.
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