Mass death among baby right whales has experts scrambling to figure out the puzzle behind the largest great whale die-off on record.
Observers have found 308 dead whales in the waters around Peninsula Valdes along Argentina's Patagonian Coast since 2005. Almost 90 percent of those deaths represent whale calves less than 3 months old, and the calf deaths make up almost a third of all right whale calf sightings in the last five years.
"This is the single largest die-off event in terms of numbers and in relation to population size and geographic range," said Marcela Uhart, a medical veterinarian with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). She represents an associate director in Latin America for the WCS Global Health Program.
Researchers in New York are breeding colonies of ladybugs from those found by scientists in Oregon and Colorado during a year-long search.
Last year, entomologist John Losey from Cornell University first introduced the Lost Ladybug Project in an attempt to find out why the once-common native ladybug species had almost completely disappeared across the nation.
The project, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, rounds up citizen scientists, or individual volunteers who may have no scientific training, to search for ladybugs and relay photos of them to Losey and his team.
Researchers are particularly interested in the nine-spotted, two-spotted and transverse ladybugs. They are three native species whose populations have drastically dropped over the past ten years, likely due to the introduction of foreign species to control crop pests.
Bats are dying off by the thousands as they hibernate in New York and Vermont, sending researchers scrambling to find the cause of a mysterious condition dubbed "white nose syndrome."
The ailment—named for the white circles of fungus found around the noses of affected bats—was first noticed last January in four caves west of Albany, New York.
It has now spread to eight bat-hibernation sites in the state and to another site in Vermont.
Alan Hicks, a bat specialist with New York's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), called the quick-spreading disorder the "gravest threat" to bats he had ever seen.
The world's honeybees appear to be dying off in horrifying numbers, and now consensus is starting to emerge on the reason why: it seems there is no one cause. Infections, lack of food, pesticides and breeding - none catastrophic on their own - are having a synergistic effect, pushing bee survival to a lethal tipping point. A somewhat anti-climactic conclusion it may be, but appreciating this complexity - and realising there will be no magic bullet - may be the key to saving the insects.
A third of our food relies on bees for pollination. Both the US and UK report losing a third of their bees last year. Other European countries have seen major die-offs too: Italy, for example, said it lost nearly half its bees last year. The deaths are now spreading to Asia, with reports in India and suspected cases in China.
"Tube socks": bark turning white from the ground up about 2 or 3 feet. Dead leaves and branches bending downward: Look up into the tree, and you might see the leaves looking scorched and brown well before winter ... interior growth is sparse. Black fungus is another report. What is causing this? Rumors circulate about the usual "beetles" or undefined "fungus" -- conveniently vague, with the familiar "nothing to get worried about" subtext or afternote.
In the case of the "tube socks," as the white material builds up, the bark of the trees will come off in big chunks in your hand. Notice in this picture that the white stuff also shows on the roots. One researcher noticed that the white is most apparent on trees that are watered or irrigated, and not present on trees that take in only groundwater, although others say they see it in the forests also.
Allen Buckman, formerly a wildlife biologist with the California Department of Fish & Game, has taught concerned citizens how to identify dying trees. (See the DVD "Sky Lines" by Deborah Whitman.) We are so used to taking trees for granted that we don't know much about them, or even take the time to look carefully at them! Just taking a walk in your neighborhood or even having a conversation with friends or homeowners might open your eyes to what's happening to our trees.
Early November 2004: This is the farm field at the Holmestead - it is only twenty-five acres but yields a good crop. This season it was soybeans and they had just come off and the field had been harrowed when this photograph was taken.
As part of the normal farming routine there have been soil tests carried out to determine if there should be any corrective measures taken to adjust the soil conditions.
This field, along with nine others in the immediate area were tested and I have the results on hand - laboratory reports #C04275-015 and 016.
Below is a sample of the form of such a report - please note that this is not one of those being studied here.
California Brown Pelican Die-Off Worries Officials
Approximately 1,000 California Brown Pelicans have been found dead, washed up to shore, and bird rescue centers have been swamped with hundred of Brown Pelicans to care for.
California - The birds, say marine biologists, have some sort of substance on them which appears to be causing the feathers to lose insulation value, resulting in cold and even hypothermic birds. Living birds have been reported to be disoriented and hungry. The birds have been washing up on United States shores from southern California to southern Oregon since mid-January, many of them already dead. The California Fish and Game Department announced Friday it would join in a collaborative effort by a number of organizations investigating the unexplained deaths. Bird rehabilitation organizations have been taking the live birds into their care, and say they have been swamped. Jay Holcomb, speaking for International Bird Rescue Research Center told officials
Poster's Note: Many have noticed that insects are taking over. In the past 5 or more years, people with gardens have had uncontrollable hoards of earwigs. I personally had to purchase nearly $200 of natural earwig pesticides (nothing harmful to the environment) just to grow my garden. Why is this happening? Simple. The natural predators of earwigs are being killed by chemtrails.
They're everywhere - on bushes, trees, porches, decks - and even inside homes.
Spiders are literally creeping out of the woodwork across Western Washington, in huge numbers. A lot of people are talking about it and wondering why.
Andrew Wikstrom is one homeowner who has the willies over the eight-legged arachnids. They are popping up all around his West Seattle house.
The United States currently ranks 49th in the world in overall life expectancy, according to a study published in the academic journal Health Affairs, slipping dramatically during the last decade.
"As of September 23, 2010, the United States ranked forty-ninth for both male and female life expectancy combined," concludes the study, conducted by Columbia University health policy professors Peter A. Muennig and Sherry A. Glied, which will appear in the November edition of the influential peer-reviewed journal.
Sudden Death Syndrome Linked to Barium in Tiny Yunnan Mushrooms
On July 13, 2010, Yahoo News reported that every summer at the peak of the wet season, numerous people in the province of Yunnan, located in southwestern China, would suddenly pass away of cardiac arrest. Researchers have finally discovered the cause of this mysterious syndrome, a small mushroom known as Little White that has been contaminated with barium from an unknown source.
Mysterious disease kills scores of seals in Alaska
A mysterious disease, possibly a virus, has afflicted ringed seals along Alaska's coast, killing scores of them since July, local and federal agencies said on Thursday.
The diseased seals have been beaching themselves on the Arctic coastline since July, with numbers picking up in subsequent months, biologists with the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management and other agencies said.
The Aluminization of Our Soils Scientists in California have discovered that soil-aluminum levels are skyrocketing, and insect populations are plummeting.
