Showing posts with label dead bats. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Dead Crickets Follow Dead Birds and Dead Fish

First dead birds, then dead fish ... now crickets

Paralysis virus has disrupted supplies to pet shops across North America

msnbc.com news services

updated 1/12/2011 5:40:49 AM ET

PORT ALLEN, La. — A virus has killed millions of crickets raised to feed pet reptiles and those kept in zoos.

The cricket paralysis virus has disrupted supplies to pet shops across North America as a handful of operators have seen millions of their insects killed.

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Some operations have gone bankrupt and others have closed indefinitely until they can rid their facilities of the virus.

Cricket farms started in the 1940s as a source of fish bait, but the bulk of sales now are to pet supply companies, reptile owners and zoos, although people also eat some.

Most U.S. farms are in the South, but suppliers from Pennsylvania to California also raise crickets.

The virus had swept through European cricket farms in 2002. It was first noticed in 2009 in the U.S. and Canada.

The virus marks the latest in a recent series of mass animal deaths.

Blackbirds fell out of the sky on New Year's Eve in Arkansas. In the days that followed, 2 million fish died in the Chesapeake Bay, 150 tons of red tilapia in Vietnam, 40,000 crabs in Britain and other places across the world.

However, biologists say 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.

Video: Arkansas’ animal deaths: Coincidence or conspiracy? (on this page)

In the past eight months, the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center has logged 95 mass wildlife die-offs in North America and that's probably a dramatic undercount, officials say.

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.

Officials blamed the deaths of 5,000 red-winged blackbirds in Beebe, Ark., on New Year's Eve fireworks.

Experts say the loud cracks and booms likely sent the birds into such a tizzy that they crashed into homes, cars and each other before plummeting to their deaths.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41034340/ns/us_news-environment/?gt1=43001

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Dead Fish...Lapu-Lapu

FISHKILL IN LAPU-LAPU

Residents gather, eat dead fish floating in barangay Ibo

By Jucell Marie Cuyos, Doris C. Bongcac
Cebu Daily NewsFirst Posted 09:08:00 12/18/2010Filed Under: Fishing Industry, Agriculture, Disasters (general)

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Maribel Mori asked her teenage son to fetch water yesterday morning.

Michael John came back with a pail of fish locally known as “potpot.”

He and other residents had collected the fish, which were floating dead along the coastal waters of barangay Ibo, in Lapu-Lapu City.

A few hours after eating the fish, which was cooked with vinegar as inun-onan for breakfast, Maribel was at the barangay health center complaining of nausea, vomiting and headache.

She told health workers she started to feel sick after eating the fish.

“Murag nang hugot akong panit unya ni init akong nawng (It felt like my skin tightened and my face burned),” said Mori.

Health and fishery officials yesterday started looking into the origin and cause of the fishkill in barangay Ibo, where thousands of fish have turned up dead.

Pollution is the most common cause of a fishkill.

But Dr. Rodulfo Berame, chief of the City health Department, said it could also be a result of the seasonal low tide in December.

He warned Ibo residents not to eat the dead fish or sell it pending results of a laboratory examination.

Samples of the seawater and fish were gathered by city health personnel yesterday. Results will be known after three to four days.

Health workers will check the quality of the seawater for chemical oxygen demand (COD) and its biological oxygen demand (BOD).

Dr. Berame said that if the fishes were killed by pollution or chemicals, many other residents would have gotten sick.

Some residents told radio dyAB pointed to the wastewater from two companies at the Mactan Export Processing Zone as a possible source of pollution.

Company representatives were supposed to hold a dialogue with barangay residents yesterday but asked barangay captain Cahilog to postpone it to next week because their Christmas parties were scheduled yesterday afternoon.

Resident Cynthia Honda said she thought the fish was an early Christmas presence.

“Panagsa ra kaayo ni ang grasia ihatag sa amo kay kada December ra jud ni siya mahitabo. Sympre grasia nani mao amoa lang gipahimuslan (It is rare that such blessing will come to us because this only happens every December. Of course, we will take advantage of this blessing),” she told CEBU DAILY NEWS.

She joined her neighbor in collecting the floating fish about 5 a.m. yesterday.

She wasn’t bothered by the warning that eating the fish was a health risk.

Honda, a mother of three children, said she would leave their fate to God.

Honda said she cooked the fish as inun-onan but didn't get sick after eating it. She had two kilos of fishes also processed into dried fish.

Lapu-Lapu City Administrator Teodulo Ybañez ordered the City Health Department to investigate the matter.

“What happened was part of the cycle if there was a low tide. Ang mga isda kay buhi paman gani pag kuha sa ubang residenti (Some of the fishes were still alive when these were gathered by the residents),” said Dr. Berame, health department chief.

He said islets in Lapu-Lapu also had reports of fishkills during low tide.

During low tide, he explained, there is low supply of oxygen in the water, causing the fishes to weaken or die.

“We are asking residents not to eat the fish because we don't know yet what killed them,” said barangay captain Ferdinand Cahilog

He said he ordered the confiscation of dead fish gathered by residents .

Cahilog said he suspects water pollution or contamination was a cause.

Allan Poquita, assistant regional director of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), sent personnel to investigate what caused the fish kill.

“We just learned about the fish kill so we cannot yet determine what caused it,” he said.

Until the cause is known, Poquita asked Ibo residents to refrain from collecting and eating the dead fish.

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/cebudailynews/news/view/20101218-309667/Residents-gather-eat-dead-fish-floating-in-barangay-Ibo

Dead Penguins.

Weather patterns lead to mass bird deaths

NZPA

Last updated 14:46 23/12/2010

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Thousands of seabirds are expected to die this summer as a result of unusual La Nina weather patterns.

The Department of Conservation (DOC) said penguins, petrels and other seabirds were already dying in large numbers and the summer weather was likely to cause the deaths of thousands of birds.

The La Nina weather pattern led to a reduction in fish stocks on which they fed, DOC vet Kate McInnes said.

Dead penguins had been washing up on northern beaches for several weeks and autopsies had shown they starved to death.

"Its not just penguins. All seabirds are struggling to feed their chicks or get into breeding condition as a result of the La Nina climate pattern," she said.

"It's sad but it's a natural event. It all points to a lack of small fish on which all these species depend to raise their chicks."

Grey-faced petrels, sooty shearwaters and gannets have all been affected.

Ms McInnes said the La Nina weather event was the biggest event of its type since 1975 and characterised by stationary anticyclones east of New Zealand bringing calmer weather in spring.

She said the calm seas reduced the feed for fish which went elsewhere, reducing the fish and food stocks for the birds.

Although many seabirds would die, they had excellent breeding last summer and population levels would cope.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/4490315/Weather-patterns-lead-to-mass-bird-deaths

Global Animal Deaths Update...

Over 30 cases of mass animal deaths around the world have armchair pundit in hysterics

Calcutta News.Net
Saturday 8th January, 2011

Although the incidents of mass animal death around the world in recent weeks are bemusing and concerning, experts have warned the online public not to panic.

Mass animal deaths around the world have become an issue of great concern and debate on the Web, but experts are keen to play down the Armageddon-like theories of many and find rational explanations.

The news reports that have proliferated in recent weeks have put conspiracy theorists and catastrophe enthusiasts on high alert.

Inndeed the reports are both baffling and concerning.

Over 5,000 blackbirds fell from the sky in Arkansas and 300 doves died simultaneously in Italy.

Similarly, 100 pelicans died in Jacksonville, 70 bats in Tucson and thousands of dead fish have washed up Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brazil and the United States.

A new map released by Google Maps, tracks the ongoing mysterious mass animals deaths that have occurred in the last month or so, the incidents of which currently number around 30.

Some conspiracy theorists believe the animal deaths to be the work of various government agencies from Mossad to the CIA, testing chemical weapons or other hostile machinery, while others have suggested it is the beginning of the end of days prophecy foretold in The Book Of Revelations.

Yet amid the online buzz, animal experts are attempting to put a rational face on events.

“Blackbirds roost communally in the wintertime, and they sleep more soundly than most animals,” Susie Kesielke, curator of birds at the Los Angeles Zoo, told CNN Radio, suggesting that fireworks were the most realistic factor causing their spectacular mass death.

Jonathan Sleeman, director of the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, added that although the number of mass animal deaths was unusual, it was not by any means unique.

“Most of the cases involved pesticides or poison ingested by the birds, but trauma has also been found to be the cause of mass bird deaths,” he told CNN, supporting theories that the birds were killed by sudden loud noise.

The reason that the mass animal deaths seem so sudden, and numerous, is due to the nature of news in the modern age, suggests Universe Today.

They point out in an online blog that digital news travels further faster than ever before, while the modern news cycle tends to get caught up in a particular issue, often blowing it out of proportion.

http://www.calcuttanews.net/story/728861/ht/Over-30-cases-of-mass-animal-deaths-around-the-world-have-armchair-pundit-in-hysterics

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