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Fri, 24 Sep 2021
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A sign of the coming times? Snowy owl seen in Central Park, New York after 130 years, a rare spotting of an 'unpredictable' Arctic bird

Ryan W. Miller
USA Today
Wed, 03 Feb 2021 19:29 UTC
A snowy owl was seen in Central Park in New York City on Jan. 27, 2021.
© REBECCA DEPORTE
A snowy owl was seen in Central Park in New York City on Jan. 27, 2021.
Becky DePorte was about 45 minutes outside the city when she got the text from a friend last Wednesday: A snowy owl was in Central Park.

DePorte - an avid bird-watcher - was then unaware a sighting of the owl hadn't been reported in Central Park in 130 years. At the time, she was in Rockefeller State Park Preserve with a friend who was looking for a pileated woodpecker, a bird she had seen plenty of times growing up in rural Pennsylvania.

"I really didn't care about a pileated woodpecker," she said. So she hopped in an Uber, and "$60 and 45 minutes later, I was back in Central Park running to the ballfield with my camera."

"I was so happy" as she snapped photos of the bird, DePorte added. "It was the best, most unusual spotting I had had."


Comment: Read also: Historic Arctic blasts are about to engulf North America, Europe and Asia simultaneously: Grand Solar Minimum

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Attention

Somalia declares state of emergency over locust invasion

Aggrey Mutambo
The East African
Fri, 05 Feb 2021 14:55 UTC
locusts
© Reuters
Somalia has declared a state of emergency over a locust invasion that is threatening to wipe away crop due for harvest from April.

Somalia already has about three million people facing food shortage.

Said Hussein Lid, Somalia's Minister for Agriculture and Irrigation, said the government has identified a large swarm of locusts in the southern federal states of Hirshabelle, South West and Jubbaland.

With the declaration, Somalia is seeking targeted funding and efforts to tame the swarms attacking a region that, according to a situational report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), is already food poor.

Somalia's decision came on Thursday after Mr Lid met representatives of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and ministers from the three southern states of Somalia.

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Bug

Hundreds of 'highly cannibalistic' spiders invade teen's bedroom in Sydney, Australia

Mindy Weisberger
Live Science
Tue, 02 Feb 2021 20:04 UTC
spiders
The pitter-patter of little feet in a child's bedroom is a joyous sound — except perhaps when those feet belong to hundreds of baby huntsman spiders.

"Gaaaahhhhhhhh, a friend of mine in Sydney just walked into her daughter's room and found this," Hobart, Australia resident Peta Rogers tweeted on Jan. 27. Rogers' Sydney friend, who asked not to be identified on social media, had sent Rogers photos and a video of her daughter's bedroom, after the teen told her "Mom, we've got a bunch of spiders up there," the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) reported on Jan. 30.

When Rogers' friend went to investigate, she found quite a few spiders in the corner of the room. "That's not too bad, there's maybe 50 or 60," she says in the video. And then she turned the camera toward another corner, revealing at least twice as many spiderlings crouching on the walls and ceiling.

"They're so cute!" she exclaims.

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Attention

Unexplained die-off latest blow to Louisiana oyster fishers


U.S. News
Mon, 01 Feb 2021 19:49 UTC
oysters
Oyster harvesters and a state agency are trying to find the reason for the death of millions of pounds of oysters in some Louisiana harvesting areas in January.

The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reports that harvesters believe that the worst of the unexplained die-off is over, although small areas of dead oysters continue to appear. The affected waters were in the Plaquemines Parish area, and one of the mysteries is why some oyster reefs located between the affected areas remained healthy and thriving.

Carolina Bourque, the oyster program manager for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said her agency and the state Department of Health have collected water samples to look for disease or chemicals.

"We definitely want to understand what's happening so we can be aware and know if there was a reason this was caused or if this is another natural event that we should be watching for," said Bourque.

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Arrow Down

Rhino at risk of extinction as Kruger National Park in South Africa reports steep decline

Robert Mendick
MSN
Sat, 30 Jan 2021 18:52 UTC
The white rhino population has been severely depleted

The white rhino population has been severely depleted
An official count in the park, home to the world's biggest concentration of rhinos, found it had lost two thirds of its animals in less than 10 years.

There are 3,549 white rhinos and 268 rarer black rhinos in the park in northeastern South Africa. In 2011 the white rhino population was estimated to be 10,621 and the black rhino 415. The decline has been most rapid since 2015 when there were estimated to be close to 9,000 white rhinos in the park.

Conservationists urged international governments to put pressure on South Africa to act urgently to halt the decline.

It had been hoped that a decrease in rhino poaching would have revived the species. But the latest figures, published in the South African National Parks annual report for 2019/2020, suggests that there is less poaching only because of a scarcity of rhino in Kruger.
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Biohazard

Sea lions are dying from a mysterious cancer in California - the culprits? Herpes and DDT

Rosanna Xia
L A Times
Sun, 31 Jan 2021 20:14 UTC
Barbie Halaska, right, necropsy manager at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, and lab assistant Jackie Isbell measure a California sea lion that was euthanized due to untreatable cancer.
© Bill Hunnewell / Marine Mammal Center
Barbie Halaska, right, necropsy manager at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, and lab assistant Jackie Isbell measure a California sea lion that was euthanized due to untreatable cancer.
On a former Cold War missile base perched high above the Golden Gate Bridge, in what is now the largest marine mammal hospital in the world, Frances Gulland still remembers the shock she felt when she first started working here as a veterinarian 26 years ago.

A male sea lion had washed ashore in severe pain. His hind flippers were swollen, his lymph nodes riddled with tumors. Cancer had taken over his kidneys and turned his spine to mush. First responders at the Marine Mammal Center told Gulland they saw this in sea lions all the time.

"Wildlife should not be getting cancer like this, that's crazy!" said Gulland, who was new to California. "How can that be?"

Now, after two decades of study, an all-star team of marine mammal pathologists, virology experts, chemists and geneticists say they've connected two surprising culprits: Herpes and toxic chemicals, like DDT and PCBs, that poisoned the California coast decades ago.
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Doberman

Pack of 5 stray dogs kill young boy in Hyderabad, India


Sakshi.com
Sun, 31 Jan 2021 12:13 UTC
dog attack
In a shocking incident, a nine year old boy was killed when stray dogs attacked him. The incident took place in Bahadurpura, Hyderabad. The deceased was identified as Md Ayaan. According to the reports, he was attacked by a group of five stray dogs.

A. Narsimha Rao, sub-inspector, Bahadurpura police station speaking to TOI said that, "While the rest of the children managed to escape from the spot, Ayaan could not. The dogs chased him around for a while before attacking him. The boy was injured and died on the spot."

It is said that Ayaan had gone to play along with his friends on Saturday evening. He didn't return home after a very long time and he was found dead when his parents started searching for him.
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Cow Skull

More than 700 pelicans found dead in Senegal world heritage site


The Guardian
Sat, 30 Jan 2021 10:38 UTC
Rangers are investigating mystery deaths at Djoudj bird sanctuary, a migratory pitstop for hundreds of bird species
Pelicans
© Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images
Senegal authorities are incinerating the dead pelicans and have closed Djoudj bird sanctuary while they investigate.
Seven hundred and fifty pelicans have been found dead in a Unesco world heritage site in northern Senegal that provides refuge for millions of migratory birds, the country's parks director has said.

Rangers found the pelicans on Saturday in the Djoudj bird sanctuary, a remote pocket of wetland near the border with Mauritania and a resting place for birds that cross the Sahara into west Africa each year.

Comment: See also:

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Doberman

Deputy mayor found dead, bitten by her two pet rottweilers in southern France

Jack Dutton
Newsweek
Thu, 28 Jan 2021 11:49 UTC
dog attack
The deputy mayor of a department in southern France has been found dead in her yard, next to two of her dogs, who appeared to have bitten her, according to reports.

Sandra Vincente, 38, who was elected mayor of the village of Sénouillac in 2014, in the Tarn department, was found in her yard by her partner on Tuesday. She was found next her two Rottweilers, who were found with bloody mouths. Vincente is disabled and had been using a wheelchair for 10 years. Her family has resided in the village for several generations, according to La Depeche.

The public prosecutor in Albi, the capital of Tarn, is investigating the incident and an autopsy has been ordered.
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Black Cat

Man survives 'predatory' cougar attack in western Canada by fighting back, officers say

Mark Price
The Sacramento Bee
Tue, 26 Jan 2021 15:19 UTC
A rare cougar attack on a human has been reported in an Soo Valley north of Vancouver. The species is also known as a mountain lion and puma.
© WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE
A rare cougar attack on a human has been reported in an Soo Valley north of Vancouver. The species is also known as a mountain lion and puma.
The cougar attack on a man reported Monday afternoon in the Soo Valley north of Vancouver, Canada, "was predatory in nature," officials say.

The victim is a 69-year-old man, who suffered major injuries while fighting off the cougar, officials said. His identity has not been released.

Canada's Conservation Officer Service says the mauling happened around 3:30 p.m. Monday, near the British Columbia community of Whistler. That's about 220 miles north of Seattle.

"The man was mauled by a cougar and suffered major injuries to his face and hand," the Conservation Officer Service wrote on Facebook. "He was taken to (a) hospital via ambulance and is reportedly in stable condition."
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