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Stranded Danish Whale Dies


The Associated Press
Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:19 UTC
Image
© Benny F. Nielsen/AP Photo
A fin whale is seen stranded in a shallow fjord on the western coast at Vejle on the western coast of Denmark Wednesday June 16, 2010.
A fin whale that was stranded in a Danish fjord for days has died and scientists were trying to pinpoint the cause, they said Monday.

A team of veterinarians, natural science experts and students have dissected most of the 58-foot (17.6-meter) whale, which died Sunday, Joachim Engel of Denmark's Natural History Museum said. Scientists will analyze its heart and other organs to establish the cause of death.

"That is what they will be trying to find out, whether it was sick. We don't know," biologist Anders Kofoed said.

The team dissected the animal on a pier in the Vejle Fjord, 135 miles (220 kilometers) west of Copenhagen, where the animal had been stranded since Wednesday.
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Binoculars

Why Chimpanzees Attack and Kill Each Other


PhysOrg
Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:00 UTC
Image
© Thomas Lersch/Wikipedia
Common chimpanzee in the Leipzig Zoo.
Bands of chimpanzees violently kill individuals from neighboring groups in order to expand their own territory, according to a 10-year study of a chimp community in Uganda that provides the first definitive evidence for this long-suspected function of this behavior.

University of Michigan primate behavioral ecologist John Mitani's findings are published in the June 22 issue of Current Biology.

During a decade of study, the researchers witnessed 18 fatal attacks and found signs of three others perpetrated by members of a large community of about 150 chimps at Ngogo, Kibale National Park.

Then in the summer of 2009, the Ngogo chimpanzees began to use the area where two-thirds of these events occurred, expanding their territory by 22 percent. They traveled, socialized and fed on their favorite fruits in the new region.
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Bizarro Earth

Pine Trees Losing Needles Still a Mystery

Jeff Meyers
Press Republican
Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:04 UTC
Needle Losing Pine
© Alvin Reiner
Amy Ivy examines a white pine branch that has dropped most of its older needles. Weather is thought to be the cause. The current year's needles seem fine.
Plattsburgh - White pines across the region have been mysteriously dropping their needles en masse.

Pines typically drop about 20 percent of their needles in the fall as the plants prepare for the long, dormant winter. However, white pines across the tri-county area seem to have shed up to 100 percent of their needles this spring.

Other Trees

"We've had a couple of incidents that seem to be weather related," said Department of Environmental Conservation Forester Bruce Barnard.

"It first showed up in sugar maples and cherry trees when there was a freeze following the warm weather we had earlier this spring.

"That froze the leaves as they were coming out, and the leaves shriveled and dropped off."

Those species seem to have rebounded as the leaves are now returning, he added.
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Wolf

Despicable Cruelty! BP "Burning Sea Turtles Alive"

Danile Tencer
Raw Story
Sun, 20 Jun 2010 15:16 UTC
Image
© AP Photo
A sea turtle caught up in the oil spill waits for treatment.
A rare and endangered species of sea turtle is being burned alive in BP's controlled burns of the oil swirling around the Gulf of Mexico, and a boat captain tasked with saving them says the company has blocked rescue efforts.

Mike Ellis, a boat captain involved in a three-week effort to rescue as many sea turtles from unfolding disaster as possible, says BP effectively shut down the operation by preventing boats from coming out to rescue the turtles.

"They ran us out of there and then they shut us down, they would not let us get back in there," Ellis said in an interview with conservation biologist Catherine Craig.

Part of BP's efforts to contain the oil spill are controlled burns. Fire-resistant booms are used to corral an area of oil, then the area within the boom is lit on fire, burning off the oil and whatever marine life may have been inside.

"Once the turtles get in there they can't get out," Ellis said.
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Radar

Egypt oil spill threatens Red Sea marine life


Agence France-Presse
Sun, 20 Jun 2010 14:54 UTC
Image
© Agence France-Presse/file
A sea turtle swims with scuba divers in the Ras Mohammed protection area near Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. …
Cairo - An oil spill off the Egyptian Red Sea coast of Hurghada threatening to damage marine life in the area has prompted environmental agencies to demand tighter regulation of offshore oil platforms.

Large quantities of oil have appeared in recent days around the resorts of Hurghada which draw millions of tourists who come to dive or snorkle, according to the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Agency.

"It started four or five days ago and the companies responsible didn't notify anyone. It is catastrophic," HEPCA Managing Director Amr Ali told AFP.

The spill was caused by leakage from an offshore oil platform north of Hurghada and has polluted protected areas and showed up on tourist beach resorts.
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Bizarro Earth

Sea creatures flee oil spill, gather near shore

John Flesher And Tamara Lush
Associated Press
Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:39 UTC
Image
© AP
A blue heron stands has a snack in the surf as oil cleanup crews make their morning patrol.

Gulf Sores Alabama - Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again.

Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange - and troubling - phenomena.

Fish and other wildlife are fleeing the oil out in the Gulf and clustering in cleaner waters along the coast. But that is not the hopeful sign it might appear to be, researchers say.
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Newspaper

US: Foxes Attack Residents in North Carolina

Ken Smith
WRAL 5
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:23 UTC
Image
© WRAL 5
Talon Thomas
An 11-year-old boy and a 22-year-old man say they were attacked this week by foxes in southern Moore County.

The attacks happened near the intersection of Sycamore Street and Midway Road in Aberdeen.

Talon Thomas, 11, said he was bitten and scratched by the fox while walking home from school Tuesday.

"He bit me on my leg, and then I just picked him up, and I just hit his head against the road and he started kicking me in my head," he said.

Talon said he kept the fox pinned down and tried to keep him quiet so he wouldn't alert other foxes.
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Binoculars

US: Dead Baby Whale Washes Up on New York Beach

Kathy Carvajal and Luke Funk
myFox: New York
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:14 UTC
Image
© myFoxNY
Whale Washes Ashore On Long Island
Long Island Humpback Whale

A necropsy- or an autopsy performed on an animal- will be done on a massive whale that washed ashore in Jones Beach. Results from the necropsy should help biologists determine what caused the whale's death.

The young, humpback whale was likely dead for a week when it came ashore on Thursday morning at Jones Beach State Park, east of field six.

SkyFoxHD was overhead at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday as the whale lay motionless and partially buried in the sand.

Animal rescue crews could be seen surrounding the 2-5 year old, dead whale which was approximately 30 feeet long. The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation was on the scene.
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Newspaper

US: Man Dies After Being Strangled by Pet Snake in Nebraska

Margery A Beck
The Associated Press
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:00 UTC
A suburban Omaha man has died after being strangled by his 9-foot, 25-pound pet boa constrictor, authorities said Thursday. Cory Byrne, 34, of Papillion died Wednesday night at a local hospital, just hours after police and paramedics pried the snake from around his neck, police said.

Byrne had been showing the snake to a friend when it wrapped around his shoulders and neck and squeezed, Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov said.

An officer was called to Byrne's apartment near downtown Papillion around 5:40 p.m. The officer found Byrne on the ground with the snake still around his neck.

Paramedics soon arrived and helped get the snake off Byrne and into a cage.
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Blackbox

12,000 endangered saiga antelope found dead in Kazakhstan

Bryan Nelson
Mother Nature Network
Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:52 UTC
Image
© Wiki Commons/GNU
SAIGA: These unique animals, which have distinct bulbous noses, once roamed over a vast area of the Eurasian steppe zone.
Mysterious deaths are a devastating blow to the unique-looking animal, which has seen its population decline by 95% since 1995.

Nearly 12,000 critically endangered saiga antelope have been found dead within a 17 square-mile area of the Ural region of western Kazakhstan, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The cause of the mysterious mass loss is still unclear, though initial investigators believed the animals may have been poisoned.

"This is a tragic and shocking event. It's particularly unfortunate that the population was just emerging from an unusually harsh winter, and that those struck down are mostly females and this year's calves," said professor E.J. Milner-Gulland, chair of the Saiga Conservation Alliance.
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