Thousands of seabirds have been wiped out in the winter storms which have also claimed the lives of dolphins and seals found washed up on west country beaches

The winter storms have caused an "unprecedented" wildlife disaster, wiping out thousands of rare seabirds, experts said yesterday.

An estimated 1,600 dead birds have washed up on beaches in Devon, Dorset, Cornwall and West Wales since early last month, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reported.

The bodies of a further 1,000 seabirds have been recovered from beaches in the Channel Islands, with more than 20 species, including guillemots, razorbills, puffins and kittiwakes, among the dead.

The RSPB said that a "double whammy" of climate change and winter storms was making it harder for birds to find enough fish to survive. The deaths will have a serious impact on breeding colonies.

At least 28,000 birds have perished across the north eastern Atlantic region, with nearly 22,000 washed up along the French coast, the conservationists said.

Grand Portage - For moose, this year's winter-long deep freeze across the Upper Midwest is truly ideal weather. The large, gangly creatures are adapted to deep snow: Their hollow fur insulates them like fiberglass does in a house. And the prolonged cold helps eradicate pests that prey on moose, like ticks and meningeal worm, or brain worm. Yet moose in Minnesota are dying at an alarming rate, and biologists are perplexed as to why.

In the 1980s, moose numbered about 4,000 in the northwest part of the state; today, there are about 100. In Northeast Minnesota, the population has dropped by half since 2006, to 4,300 from more than 8,800. In 2012, the decline was steep enough - 35 percent - that the state and local Chippewa tribes, which rely on moose meat for subsistence, called off the moose hunt. The mortality rate rebounded slightly this year, but moose continue to die at twice the normal rate to sustain a population. Researchers elsewhere, along the southern edge of moose territory in New Hampshire and Montana, are also beginning to notice declines in the animals' numbers.

Hundreds of ducks are being found dead along Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and the state Department of Environmental Conversation says extensive ice coverage is to blame.

The ducks have been found along the Lake Ontario shoreline, the Niagara River, in the open waters of Lake Erie, and Dunkirk Harbor. Conservationists say the fish eating birds found dead are emaciated and lack water-proofing, which is often a side effect of starvation.

Biologists believe the extensive ice coverage on the lakes has forced wintering waterfowl to concentrate in the limited remaining open water. That, in turn, reduces the food for all and, along with severe cold, is killing off the undernourished birds.

Though the mortality rate is difficult to estimate, the DEC categorized it as "extensive."

A snake took on a crocodile and won following a dramatic five-hour long battle.

The snake - thought to be python measuring around 10ft - constricted the crocodile to death, before dragging it to shore and eating it whole in fifteen minutes in front of a shocked crowd of onlookers.

The incident was captured on camera by author Tiffany Corlis at Lake Moondarra in Queensland, Australia.

Ms Corlis, from nearby Mount Isa, was enjoying breakfast at the idyllic spot when a group of canoeists alerted her to the fierce fight.

She said: "When we reached the water's edge the snake had wrapped itself around the croc and was tightening.

Heavy snowfall in Europe causes misery - 6.0 earthquake in Greece, followed by a 6.1 a week later - More fireballs - Mt. Etna eruption - Deep freeze in America, heavy snowfall in south East, children stranded in schools - Bizarre tumbleweed invasion in Mexico - Massive floods in Italy, 2 meters of snow in the north - Indonesia volcano eruption kills 16 people - Heaviest snow in 50 years in Iran, 1.5 meters - 400 dead dolphins in Peru - Blizzards turn Slovenia to ice, and disrupt Serbia Croatia, Germany - 30 ft sinkhole in Buckinghamshire - Britain battered by a swath of storms, causing yet more extreme flooding, worst in 250 years - Blizzards blast north west US, while california suffers heavy flooding - Worst snowstorm in Japan in decades kills 13 people, heaviest in 78 years - Huge sinkhole swallows car museum - 130 year record broken for storms in Philadelphia - 49 out of 50 states covered in snow - Another eruption on Java island, Indonesia leaves 2 people dead - Carolina earthquakes - 103 earthquakes in Oklahoma. Mysterious boom in Philadelphia blows out windows - New jersey lake turns blood red - 22 Tornadoes strike states in Midwest...

Recent storms worldwide have been destroying records with an onslaught of precipitation leading to more 100 year events which devastated populated areas. This video includes rare, strange and extreme weather that had taken place over the last month or so and it's not getting any better since my last upload, it only worsen!


*This series does not mean the world is ending! These are documentaries of series of extreme weather events that are leading to bigger earth changes. If you are following the series, then you are seeing the signs.

Kobe - A giant squid was captured alive in the Sea of Japan off Shinonsen, Hyogo Prefecture, but died shortly after being landed. Giant squids are normally a deep-sea dweller and one of the largest invertebrate species.

It is rare for a giant squid to be captured alive, according to an expert.

The squid measured 4.13 meters in length, but would have been eight to nine meters in length if its two longer tentacles had not been severed. It weighed between 150 and 200 kilograms.

Fisherman Tetsuo Okamoto, 63, first caught sight of the squid as he was diving for turban shells about five kilometers from the town's Moroyose fishing port at about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. The giant squid swam over his head when he was about eight meters below the surface.

Okamoto managed to snare it with a rope, which he tied to his boat. He then transported the squid back to the port, but about 10 people were needed to haul it ashore. "I didn't think I'd ever get to see a giant squid swimming in the sea," he said.

Source: The Yomiuri Shimbun

Kuwait Environment Protection Society (KEPS) urged authorities to make use of the recently beached blue whale at Failaka Island as an educational tool for students and the public alike, a statement by the Society said on Saturday.

KEPS's director Wijdan Al-Eqab indicated in a press statement that the bone or skeleton structure of the dead whale should be preserved and made ready for display to the public at one of the museums in the country, preferably at the Science Musuem.

This beached whale at Failaka Island has been found to be between 15 to 20 meters long. Blue whales are known to be the largest mammals on earth whose size could exceed 30 meters long.


Al-Eqab said that word has reached KEPS through the social media that two more beached whales have been found, one at the Abul-Hasania Beach and another at the Jelaia'a Beach, both being of a much smaller size than the blue whale at Failaka Island. In fact the size of the small ones ranged between one and one-and-a-half meters, said the director.

She added that blue whales roam many areas in the world including the Indian Ocean from which the beached one at Failaka Island most probably came. She also guessed that the whale had likely lost its way and was carried off by swift currents to the Arabian Gulf. No reason for its death has been determined as of yet, she said.

Footage of a family of beavers filmed in a Devon river is believed to be the first sighting of its kind in up to 500 years


A family of wild beavers has been seen in the England countryside in what is believed to be the first sighting of its kind in up to 500 years.

Three European beavers (Castor fiber), believed to be adults, have been filmed together on the River Otter in east Devon and can be seen gnawing at the base of trees, grooming themselves and playing together.

Experts said the sighting was "highly significant" as it strongly suggested a small breeding population of beavers now existed outside captivity.

European beavers were once widespread in the UK but were hunted to extinction by the 16th century in England and Wales for their fur, medicinal value and meat.

There have been successful reintroduction schemes in other parts of the UK. In 2009, three beaver families were released into forest lochs near the Sound of Jura in Argyll, while plans to release the species into the wild in Wales have also moved a step closer. The sighting in Devon would be the first time in centuries that European beavers have bred in the wild in England.

When Yves Perreault looks out over the pristine waters of Desolation Sound, where his family annually harvests half a million oysters, he fears for the future of the ocean - and the industry that supplies Canada with half its shellfish.

Something is killing oysters and scallops in dramatic numbers, causing suppliers to warn of shortages and producers to worry about the future of their businesses.

The cause is unknown, but ocean acidification is the main suspect.

"Its a remote area, the water is clean ... we haven't had any environmental concerns, so I'm not sure what's going on," said Mr. Perrault, who owns Little Wing Oysters and is president of the BC Shellfish Grower's Association.

Over the past two years, Mr. Perreault's oyster farm on B.C.'s south coast has experienced 80 to 90 per cent mortality of young shellfish - the normal attrition rate is 50 per cent - and last year, nearby Pendrell Sound had a massive die-off of wild oysters.

"It was in the billions," he said of the Pacific oysters that died only a few months after they hatched.

"It's hard to say without having somebody there monitoring what's going on. It could be food related. Maybe there were too many oysters and there was not enough food and they just starved - or something else [is happening] in the water like the acidity level," he said. "To be frank, we don't know a lot about it and that's what's scary."

A survey of stranded seabirds on the Atlantic coast of France has found more than 21,000 of their corpses washed up on shores between Brittany and Spain.

A co-ordinated count that took place last weekend (22-23 February) from Finistère to the Spanish border resulted in 21,341 dead birds begin retrieved, along with and another 2,784 brought to veterinary centres to aid recovery. Several thousand dead seabirds were already counted earlier in the month and fishermen and other boat users reported that there were "carpets of dead birds" still floating at sea.

The vast majority were Puffins (more than 12,229 individuals), with smaller numbers of Common Guillemots (5,443) and a lesser percentage of Razorbills (376) and Kittiwakes (no exact figure available yet). The numbers are expected to increase in the coming days and weeks as more birds are washed ashore.

The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) have already previously reported a record number of British-ringed Puffins being washed up dead on the coasts of France and Spain. Instead of the usual two or three birds reported in a normal winter, the BTO has had more than 35 reported in the last few weeks. The previous highest number of ringed birds found was back in 1979 when 17 dead Puffins were reported.