Dead Fish and Birds

[Meg 368]

Weird happenings:

Jan 3, Arkansas:    Nearly 3,000 Dead Birds Fall From Arkansas Sky

Jan 3, Arkansas:    100,000 dead drum fish blanket banks of Arkansas River

Jan 4, Brazil:          100 tons of fish die

Jan 5, Sweden:      Dozens of jackdaws found dead

 

Jan 5, Kentucky:     Hundreds of Birds Found Dead

Jan 5, Louisana:     More Dying Birds Fall from Sky

Jan 5, Maryland:     Two Million Dead Fish Appear in Chesapeake Bay

Jan 5, U.K.             Thousands of crabs wash up on U.K. Beaches

Did I miss any?

[svachon 3]

It's got to be the fault of Global Warming or Bush. Everything Bush's fault.

[nathanthemayor 1,261]

Well, hmmm maybe it is a sign of the end of the world....

[Larks2242 251]

Hide your windshields, Birds are getting sucidal!

[TekindusT 3,809]

This is how all disaster movies begin...

But if you ask to me, we're seeing this news because the media wants. I mean, on January 3rd, there was that birds Fall in Arkansas, this news spread all around the world. And just because this incident happened, now the media are highlighting everything related to a large number of animal deaths; if those deaths would have happened before the Arkansas incident, nobody would have cared.

Just my two cents.

[psander5 195]

Remember... the media likes it when you're scared. It makes you watch!

Many of the events can be explained. The UK example is because of cold weather. Last month when we were experiencing our coldest December on record no-one was claiming it was the apocalypse. They just put an extra jumper on and got on with it.  Now, as a result of the unusual cold, a few crabs got hypothermia in our usually warmer waters and people are using it as an example of the coming of the apocalypse! 

Events like the bird deaths aren't new either. last year a group of starlings crashed onto a driveway in Britain, and because it was a while ago they figured out the likely cause. Sure enough, it wasn't the beginning of the end... it was more likely a combination of a hungry sparrowhawk and a quirk of the man-made environment. Read about it here.  

If you read beyond the headlines you'll find that most of these recent events already have rational explanations ready to be proven... which is no surprise.   The fact that several extraordinary events occur at the same time doesn't make them any more unusual. 

Turn that into several hundred though and you might have me thinking there's something more extreme going on... however, not God (IMO ).

[beer_scnerd 1]

That things happen why???? Because global warming . Our world become hotter and hotter.

[svachon 3]

Originally posted by: beer_scnerd

That things happen why???? Because global warming . Our world become hotter and hotter.quote>

I don't believe it and the science hasn't proven it.  Look it up scientific consensus is really the beginning stages of looking into and applying the scientific method to see if there is any scientific proof.  There seems to be some evidence of GW but there is no proof and no proof that it is man made.  The sample size is too small.  As man made emmissions have gone up over the last century temperatures have actually gone down.  Most of the temp change took place over 50 yrs ago and nothing in the last 15 years.  I think they will find temp change is a nature ebb and flow of our planet and the more specifically related to the sun.

[DICK60 0]

This is our first warning , people from Mars!

[Meg 368]

Jan 5, Maryland:     Two Million Dead Fish Appear in Chesapeake Bayquote>

 

The vast majority of those are juvenile spot fish.   Spot fish usually leave the bay in the fall and return in the spring.

Only the young spot fish are dying.   Are their parents still in the bay but surviving the cold winter?   Or did the young ones just stay behind when their parents left?    If so, why?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, what conditions cause juvenile spot fish to leave the bay?  Did they not happen?  The storms in the Atlantic this year may have changed the salinity of the water, or the way the brackish currents lead out to sea.  What does NOAA say about this?  I suppose someone from the EPA will try to put a lid on it.

As for birds dying on the wing in flocks, I suppose they ran into a cloud of volcanic gas.  There has been enough of them around this year.  Any necropsy results?

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: A Nonny Moose

Well, what conditions cause juvenile spot fish to leave the bay?  Did they not happen?  quote>

All spot fish usually leave the bay around October and head for warmer waters.   This year the young'uns stayed behind for some unknown reason.

The storms in the Atlantic this year may have changed the salinity of the water, or the way the brackish currents lead out to sea.  quote>

Initial findings say the water is fine.  Cold but in about the same condition as it was last year when the young'uns left with their parents.

What does NOAA say about this?  quote>

Haven't heard yet.

I suppose someone from the EPA will try to put a lid on it. quote>

Might be difficult to do.   The "Save the Bay" folks are pretty vocal around here.  They are probably running their own tests.

As for birds dying on the wing in flocks, I suppose they ran into a cloud of volcanic gas.  There has been enough of them around this year.  Any necropsy results?  quote>

The results so far, say the birds died from physical trauma.   Well, dropping from the sky and hitting hard pavement tends to do that.   It doesn't explain why they dropped from the sky in the first place.

[Slashback 136]

I just read, that some of the deaths can be the result of fireworks. Until now, that's the most plausible reason - at least in Sweden.

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: ImVhOzzi

I just read, that some of the deaths can be the result of fireworks. Until now, that's the most plausible reason - at least in Sweden.quote>

That's what they are saying about the birds in Arkansas and Kentucky.

Question is:  why these fireworks now?   It's not like fireworks are new.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: Meg

Originally posted by: ImVhOzzi

I just read, that some of the deaths can be the result of fireworks. Until now, that's the most plausible reason - at least in Sweden.quote>

That's what they are saying about the birds in Arkansas and Kentucky.

Question is:  why these fireworks now?   It's not like fireworks are new.

quote>

What about a sudden hail storm?

physical tramua from being hit buy hail, knocked sensless if not outright killed or being concussed drop to thier deaths? no evidence when the hail melts.

or a sudden updraft in a thunder storm to levels to cold to live.

[Slashback 136]

Originally posted by: Meg

Originally posted by: ImVhOzzi

I just read, that some of the deaths can be the result of fireworks. Until now, that's the most plausible reason - at least in Sweden.quote>

That's what they are saying about the birds in Arkansas and Kentucky.

Question is:  why these fireworks now?   It's not like fireworks are new.

quote>

I agree with that, but some of the places where the deaths have occured, fireworks must be the reason. The media are just making things look more serious than they are, and including all the stories about deaths of birds.

[Larks2242 251]

It seems the birds were misinformed, 2012 isn't for another year.

[Duke87 1,070]

Clearly it's the Andromeda Strain.

[One Rincon Hill 0]

Why do we need to explain everything?

This is not a new occurrence, but people don't even care to see if it has even happened before and instead just fear monger over something that they know nothing about.

(AP) WASHINGTON (AP) - 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.

___

AP Researcher Julie Reed Bell contributed to this report.

___

Online:

USGS: http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/mortality_events/ongoing.jsp

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/06/ap/tech/main7220470.shtml

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Bah!  This is an excuse for various newmedia to train junior reporters by assigning them to these stories.  If they get any kind of rational answers, it will be good for them.

[WillG_75 19]

There's a Pole Shift happening right now. The magnetic field of the north pole is currently in Northern Russia. This could cause a warping of the magnetic field, which can affect wildlife. Hopefully we aren't abound to see a Geomagnetic Reversal.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

And it has been going on for some time.  Along with all the other predictions of gloom and doom, it is something with which we just have to cope.  I wouldn't get alarmed until it went south of 66ºN Latitude (the Arctic Circle).  At that point, things should be very interesting.

[One Rincon Hill 0]

The drifting of the poles actually has nothing to do with the magnetic poles whatsoever. The theory of polar drift was debunked by the fact that it was the ground that was moving because of tectonic activity, not the poles themselves.

[Meg 368]

But Australia managed to save the baby bats   [link]

[§haÅ--Ñ€ §hÅŽo 370]

Is this an epidemic that is killing these poor animals or is their no known cure yet?

[Barbarossa 51]

.

  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: Meg

But Australia managed to save the baby bats   [link]

quote>

Those  are pretty baby big bats. one of the pictures shows thier almost the size of a persons hand.

So maby 130 is a large part of the local population.

In The USA there a massive die outs( millions) of bats  over the last few years

due to white-nose syndrome.

Click here for the Same Bat Story, in  your same Bat Magazine

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Probably the most serious die out right now is the honey bee.  There are several causes, and apiarists are going around in tight circles looking for a solution.  If we lose our honey bees, pollination of crops will be a problem until nature fills the gap.  Meanwhile, agriculture is in real trouble.  It isn't only weather that can wreck crops.

[Easy Bakes 253]

National Geographic proves media hype

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110106-birds-falling-from-sky-bird-deaths-arkansas-science/

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: Easy Bakes

National Geographic proves media hype

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110106-birds-falling-from-sky-bird-deaths-arkansas-science/quote>

So there was a slow news day or two.