Renewable Revolution

Tue Jan 27, 2015 at 02:17 PM EST.



What is causing the mass deaths of seabirds on the West Coast?
by
Jen Hayden

What's killing off the seabirds at an alarming rate?

Birdwatchers and researchers in the Western U.S. are sounding an alarm about the mysterious  deaths of seabirds:

"This is just massive, massive, unprecedented," said Julia Parrish, a University of Washington seabird ecologist who oversees the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST), a program that has tracked West Coast seabird deaths for almost 20 years. "We may be talking about 50,000 to 100,000 deaths.    So far."


What's causing the deaths?

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 from California to Alaska over the past 18 months, some scientists suspect a factor in both cases may be uncharacteristically warm waters.
The U.S. Geological Survey and others have performed animal autopsies, called necropsies, on several of the emaciated Cassin's auklets. They've found no evidence of disease or trauma—no viruses or bacteria, no feathers coated with spilled oil. The birds appear simply to have starved to death.
Uncharacteristically warm waters. At a time when the oceans are warming at their fastest known rate:

In a study out today in the journal Science, researchers say that the middle depths of a part of the Pacific Ocean have warmed 15 times faster in the past 60 years than they did during the previous 10,000 years.
Most of the heat that humanity has put into the atmosphere since the 1970s from greenhouse gas emissions has likely been absorbed by the oceans, according to the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations-sponsored group of scientists that issues reports every few years about the effects of global warming.

For now, the mass deaths seem to be contained to seabirds. But, scientists warn that it may not end there:

Sydeman predicts that this spring or summer the dying might spread to the salmon and forage fish that eat those same plankton species and then perhaps to the murres or other birds that, in turn, eat those fish.
"I think there's a strong possibility of it escalating to affect other species in the near future," he said.

Let's seriously hope these seabirds aren't our canary in the coal mine.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/27/1360519/-What-is-causing-the-mass-deaths-of-seabirds-on-the-West-Coast

Agelbert NOTE: "CONTAINED" to seabirds? My what an interesting view of the massive deaths of innocent birds because of what Homo SAPS do. After all, it's ALWAYS been about US, right? Tough luck for other life forms as long as we can industrially heat, beat and treat our way to prosperity and piggery, RIGHT?

WRONG! Folks, we are WAY past "canaries", folks. Enjoy our Ecocidal Suicide, fellow Homo SAPS in general and Homo Apex Predatorus
in particular.