Mass bird, fish deaths occur regularly

[99socks Profile]

WASHINGTON – First, the blackbirds fell out of the sky on New Year's Eve in Arkansas. In recent days, wildlife have mysteriously died in big numbers: 2 million fish in the Chesapeake Bay, 150 tons of red tilapia in Vietnam, 40,000 crabs in Britain and other places across the world. Blogs connected the deadly dots, joking about the "aflockalypse" while others saw real signs of something sinister, either biblical or environmental.

The reality, say biologists, is that these mass die-offs happen all the time and usually are unrelated.

Federal records show they happen on average every other day somewhere in North America. Usually, we don't notice them and don't try to link them to each other.

"They generally fly under the radar," said ornithologist John Wiens, chief scientist at the California research institution PRBO Conservation Science.

Since the 1970s, the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin has tracked mass deaths among birds, fish and other critters, said wildlife disease specialist LeAnn White. At times the sky and the streams just turn deadly. Sometimes it's disease, sometimes pollution. Other times it's just a mystery.

In the past eight months, the USGS has logged 95 mass wildlife die-offs in North America and that's probably a dramatic undercount, White said. The list includes 900 some turkey vultures that seemed to drown and starve in the Florida Keys, 4,300 ducks killed by parasites in Minnesota, 1,500 salamanders done in by a virus in Idaho, 2,000 bats that died of rabies in Texas, and the still mysterious death of 2,750 sea birds in California.

On average, 163 such events are reported to the federal government each year, according to USGS records. And there have been much larger die-offs than the 3,000 blackbirds in Arkansas. Twice in the summer of 1996, more than 100,000 ducks died of botulism in Canada.

"Depending on the species, these things don't even get reported," White said.

Weather — cold and wet weather like in Arkansas New Year's Eve when the birds fell out of the sky — is often associated with mass bird deaths, ornithologists say. Pollution, parasites and disease also cause mass deaths. Some are even blaming fireworks for the blackbird deaths.

So what's happening this time?

Blame technology, says famed Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson. With the Internet, cell phones and worldwide communications, people are noticing events, connecting the dots more.

"This instant and global communication, it's just a human instinct to read mystery and portents of dangers and wondrous things in events that are unusual," Wilson told The Associated Press on Thursday. "Not to worry, these are not portents that the world is about to come to an end."

Wilson and the others say instant communications — especially when people can whip out smart phones to take pictures of critter carcasses and then post them on the Internet — is giving a skewed view of what is happening in the environment.

The irony is that mass die-offs — usually of animals with large populations — are getting the attention while a larger but slower mass extinction of thousands of species because of human activity is ignored, Wilson said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110107/ap_on_sc/us_sci_dead_wildlife_fact_check

[99socks Profile]

Good grief.. a commentator on the above article is trying to connect this to May 21, 2011....

[Epicfailure Profile]

LMAO!!!! yes and global environmental accidents, or "experiments" occur regularly too, and we should not link any of this together?

HAHAHAHA where is my beer goggles, I think I need to become and alcoholic so this makes sense to me.

more move along nothing to see here propaganda...

across the world things are just falling dead in the thousands of numbers..... but we think our own farts and comments are more important and probably more right than the THOUSANDS of dead animals dying for what we think is no reason at all, they just felt like doing it..

you know, all the cool kids are doing it, so the fish and the birds want in on it too.

[Boondox681 Profile]

ok.this shit happens.that's not my problem.
my problem is this.....
why didn't they just fuckin' say that?
why the lies?hi-altitude hail(?),lightning,fireworks(?)
that's how you know their lying.
2 days ago,that shiteater michiau kaku gave his 100 percent gaurantee that it was fireworks that spooked the 'lead' bird.
today?
"that shit just happens"

[Newdawnrising Profile]

Gee they have been keeping records since the 70s! WOW! they know it all don't they? So it wasn't until DDT admittedly started descimating bird populations, that they took notice. They know shit, yet are the first to say everything is fine. Shills that are paid by the government to report what the government really wants us to know, shills that need to loose their jobs, along with the government that supports them. Mankind has gone too far to attain the freedom of the birds we live in awe of. How ironic.

[The57ironman Profile]

Report: Nearly 7 Million Bats Died Across Northeast From Mysterious Disease



January 30, 2012 10:55 AM

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A national organization of recreational cavers is questioning a new estimate of the number of bats killed by a mysterious ailment that is spreading across the country.

The estimate by state and federal scientists said ....... .....5.7 million to 6.7 million bats had died across the Northeast from what’s known as white nose syndrome. But that estimate, released this month, is flawed and could lead to unnecessary restrictions on access to caves across the country, said Peter Youngbear, a Vermont-based official with the National Speleological Society.

“This is extremely important as this number is likely to drive significant wildlife and land management decisions,” Youngbear wrote in a letter to the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Decisions about closing caves, which would impact local economies, will be made based on the estimates, he pointed out.

“It is imperative that it be as accurate and defensible as possible,” Youngbear wrote.

The federal government defended the estimate. If anything, it’s too low, said Ann Froschauer, the Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman on white nose issues.

“The group of biologists from the Northeast and from university and research institutions that came together have many, many years of experience in working with bats,” she said.

White nose is caused by a fungus that prompts bats to wake from their winter hibernation and die when they fly into the winter landscape in search of food that isn’t there. First spotted in New York six years ago, it’s been found in 16 states and four Canadian provinces.

It’s nearly wiped out some species. One of the hardest-hit is the little brown bat, once the most common bat in the Northeast and found across the country, in much of Canada and north into Alaska.


http://connecticut.cbslocal.com/2012/01 ... s-disease/