“One
of largest mass die-offs of seabirds ever recorded” now underway on
West Coast — Gov’t: “I’ve never seen anything like this, ever” —
Experts: “Just massive, massive, unprecedented” … “Strong possibility of
it escalating to affect other species” — “Significant uptick in
mass-mortality events in marine world”
January 23rd, 2015
National Geographic, Jan 23, 2015 (emphasis added): Mass Death of
Seabirds in Western U.S. Is ‘Unprecedented’… [It's] becoming one of the
largest mass die-offs of seabirds ever
recorded… about Halloween, thousands of juvenile auklets started washing
ashore… Since then the deaths haven’t stopped. Researchers are
wondering if the die-off might spread to other birds or even fish. The
gruesome auklet deaths come just as scientists around the globe are
seeing a significant uptick in mass-mortality events in the marine
world, from sea urchins to fish and birds. Although there doesn’t appear
to be a link to the virus that killed tens of millions of sea stars
along the same shores… some scientists suspect a factor in both cases
may be uncharacteristically warm waters… At first scientists weren’t too
surprised by the carcasses washing ashore… But they now are perplexed
by the sheer numbers of dead birds and the spreading geographic extent
of the die-off… By comparison, not one of the five largest U.S. bird
mortality events tracked by USGS since 1980 is estimated to have topped
11,000 deaths. In Europe… the worst die-off on record [was] 57,000… On
some beaches the Cassin’s auklet death toll was a hundred times greater
than any bird die-off ever… and six times worse per kilometer than the
body count recorded after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill… Research in
the waters off Oregon already has shown that some of the tiny
crustaceans at the bottom of the marine food chain were replaced by
smaller species… It’s still not clear [if] changing climate contributed
to any of these shifts.
Julia Parrish, Univ. of Washington seabird ecologist overseeing a survey
team tracking seabird deaths: “This is just massive, massive,
unprecedented… We may be talking about 50,000 to 100,000 deaths so far
[estimated total population is between 1,000,000 and 3,500,000]… Death
at this level and over this much real estate has to be from more than
just [lack of food].”
David Nuzum, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife: “I’ve never seen anything like this, ever, and I’ve been here since 1985.”
Mike Szumski, US Fish & Wildlife Service biologist: “You’d find
them piled up in clusters… every now and then we’d… find a bird that was
just barely clinging to life. They were just skin and bones.”
Bonnie Wood, patrols beaches for dead birds: “It’s so distressing… They’re just everywhere.”
Bill Sydeman, senior scientist at California’s Farallon Institute: “I
think there’s a strong possibility of it escalating to affect other
species in the near future.”
http://enenews.com/o
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