Wednesday, April 25, 2007 8:24 AM

I was having a cup of tea in the kitchen when I heard a 'brief' blurb on the news telling of a million fish that had died in the Colorado River (covering an area of 7 miles). The reason given was 'lack of oxygen'.

March 12, 2011

Sardines that suffocated and died en masse this week in King Harbor have tested positive for a powerful neurotoxin that scientists believe may have distressed 1 million or more fish off the Los Angeles coastline and caused them to swim chaotically into the Redondo Beach marina.

Jaan 2 2011

BEEBE, Ark. — Workers for an environmental services company on Sunday finished picking up the carcasses of about 2,000 red-winged blackbirds that fell dead from the sky onto a central Arkansas town's streets, sidewalks and lawns.

Officials are investigating what may have killed some 100,000 fish in the Arkansas River in the northwestern section of the state, authorities said on Sunday.

Dec 28,2009

WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND—Twenty-eight pilot whales died or were euthanized by conservation workers after a mass stranding on a remote New Zealand beach, an official said Monday.

Dec 13 2006

SALMON, Idaho, (Reuters) - Officials scrambled on Wednesday to determine what has caused the deaths of thousands of mallard ducks in south-central Idaho near the Utah border.......

Wildlife officials are calling the massive die-off alarming, with the number of dead mallards rising from 1,000 on Tuesday to more than 2,000 by Wednesday afternoon.....

"We've never seen anything like this -- ever," Parrish said.

August 30, 2010

The exceptional quantity of dead and decomposing fish in the rivers has tainted the water supplies of several Bolivian towns and completely destroyed the livelihoods of fisherman living in the area. With bans now in place to protect the small populations of fish that remain, the economic recovery will be slow even after temperatures begin to warm.

2007-07-12 13:09:57

Large quantities of dead fish floats on Guanqiao Lake in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province July 11, 2007. Severe pollution, caused by untreated industrial waste and continuous scorching heat resulted in the deaths of 50,000 kg of fish in the lake, setting off the stench to local villagers around the lake. [Photo: Newsphoto

Jan 2, 2011

The 20-mile stretch along the Arkansas River where an estimated 100,000 drum fish were found washed ashore and floating looks much different now.

Keith Stephens with Game and Fish explains, "We got a call last week from a tug boat operator that found the fish out on the river along the bank, in the river channel and we immediately dispatched somebody to the area to take a look."

February 16, 2008

NEWPORT, ORE. Peering into the murky depths, Jane Lubchenco searched for sea life, but all she saw were signs of death.

Video images scanned from the seafloor revealed a boneyard of crab skeletons, dead fish and other marine life smothered under a white mat of bacteria. At times, the camera's unblinking eye revealed nothing at all -- a barren undersea desert in waters renowned for their bounty of Dungeness crabs and fat rockfish.

"We couldn't believe our eyes," Lubchenco said, recalling her initial impression of the carnage brought about by oxygen-starved waters. "It was so overwhelming and depressing. It appeared that everything that couldn't swim or scuttle away had died."

Littering the beach: The bodies of two million spot fish washed up on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, after unusually cold weather earlier this week

Thousands of dead fish have washed up on the shores of Spruce Creek, Florida

Feb. 13, 2009

Farmers prepare to bury dead chickens on Feb. 5 in Chongqing, China, where nearly 12,000 chickens have been found dead in a local village since January 30. The cause of the death is still not determined

LABARRE — Hundreds of dead and dying birds littered a quarter-mile stretch of highway in Pointe Coupee Parish on Monday as motorists drove over and around them.

State biologists are trying to determine what led to the deaths of the estimated 500 red-winged blackbirds and starlings on La. 1 just down the road from Pointe Coupee Central High School.

Dead birds pile up at the Overlander Roadhouse, 200km south of Carnarvon. Hot weather is suspected of killing the birds after a heatwave pushed temperatures above 40C for over a week. | Pictures copyright: Benjamin Strick, Northern Guardian

Sep 22, 2010

It started around the Gulf of Mexico but is now spreading in other parts of the worlds. Dead fish are landing massively on beaches. I open this thread to gather the datas we find on this.

9/22/2010

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — At least 40 out of some 80 pilot whales that stranded themselves on a remote northern New Zealand beach have died, and more whales are joining them on land, officials said Wednesday. It was the second mass beaching in the region in a month.

Wed Sep 22, 2010

Second large fish kill reported in Plaquemines

50,000 dead starfish found on Irish beach

Extreme weather conditions have killed tens of thousands of starfish and left them strewn across a sheltered beach.

A carpet of pink and mauve echinoderms, a family of marine animals, appeared yesterday morning on Lissadell Beach in north Co Sligo.

January 10, 2011

Beaches in the Northwestern regions of Colombia, are the latest to be hit with the grim spectacle of thousands of dead fish, a bizarre occurrence plaguing Brazil, New Zealand, and at least three U.S. states, among others.

September 23, 2010

Officials claimed that there were about 90 pilot whales stranded on the Spirits Bay. Rescuers tried the save the whales and put them back to the ocean. However, they only managed to save 24 of the pilot whales. Other whales managed themselves to get back to the water. However, other whales die of dehydration and weakness.

August 12, 2010

Hundreds of Thousands of DEAD FISH on NEW JERSEY beach along Delaware Bay.

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

MATO GROSSO DO SUL/AMAZON Region – At Aquidauana, pantanal region of the Mato Grosso do Sul state, shoals of painteds, pacus, golden fishes, cacharas - and even stingrays, are floating dead in Rio Negro, one of the largest in the Amazon River basin.

6th January 2011

Road to nowhere: Dead birds litter a bridge on Highway 155 in Texas

12 Dec 2009

Thousands of fish perish as drought dries up the Amazon's Manaquiri River.Gabriel Elizondo in Manaquiri, Brazil

, Jan. 20, 2011

June 4, 2007

A pond filled with dead fish on the outskirts of Wuhan, in Hubei province. About 125,000kg of fish have reportedly died in China in the last three days due to water pollution. Photograph: Reuters

December 2, 2009

MADISON, Wis. -- The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is investigating a massive fish kill that killed thousands of game fish in Lake Puckaway.

January 25, 2009

Hundreds of dead birds discovered in the last few days in Franklin Township, Somerset County New Jersey, have created something of a controversy over what killed them, according to a report in Gannett.

November 22, 2009

Resident Manoel da Silva paddles his canoe through dead fish in the Parana de Manaquiri River, a tributary of the Amazon, near the city of Manaquiri . After a rainy season that caused some of the worst flooding in recent history the seasonal drought that followed is proving to be especially bad as well.

24 November 2010

A woman collects dead fish near a nature reserve in Peru. Environmentalists say a gas liquefying plant could have been sending harmful toxins into the sea (Source: Reuters

Tuesday March 02 2010 06:22 GMT

Thousands of dead fish have washed up on a lagoon in Rio de Janeiro, a city in Brazil.

10 October 2006

A local fisherman paddles his boat though thousands of dead fish floating in the Sinos river in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Local authorities will only say that thousands of fish have died, but have not given any reason for the tragedy.

However it is widely expected that severe pollution is the cause. The river receives the effluents released by one of the most important industrial centres in South Brazil.

Read more:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-409649/Pollution-kills-thousands-fish-Brazils-Sinos-river.html#ixzz1GmXlJejy

2/28/2010 6:23:08 PM ET

RIO DE JANEIRO — Thousands of dead fish washed up on the shores of a popular beachside lagoon in Rio over the weekend, offending joggers' olfactory senses and leading the city to fight the stench with disinfectant. The official state news service Agencia Brasil said about 100 city employees working full-time cleared nearly 80 tons of fish as of Sunday. There was no immediate estimate of how many died, but several species were involved.

Jan 4, 2011

Fishermen have found at least 100 tonnes, mainly sardines. A survey conducted by the Federation of Fishermen's Colony of Paraná, Paranaguá on the coast of the state, indicates that at least 100 tons of fish (sardine, croaker and catfish) have turned up dead since last Thursday off the coast of Parana Brazil.

Current extent of 'dead zone' as determined from July 24 to Aug. 2

The annual summertime dead zone caused by low oxygen levels in water along the Gulf of Mexico shoreline this year is twice as big as last year's, stretching 7,722 square miles across Louisiana's coast well into Texan waters, scientists with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium announced Monday.

But there's no evidence the larger expanse of low-oxygen water -- which covers an area as big as Massachusetts, and is linked to nutrients carried to the Gulf by the Mississippi River -- was made bigger by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, scientists said.

Last year, the area affected by low oxygen was limited by lower springtime water levels in the Mississippi River, which meant less nutrients reached coastal waters. Also, persistent winds from the west and southwest last year may have driven low-oxygen water out of the easternmost Louisiana waters where last year's mapping was done.

The size of this year's dead zone might actually be larger than mapped. LUMCON's R/V Pelican research ship found a large area of hypoxia, or low-oxygen water, along the coast west of Galveston Bay and offshore in that area, but was unable to finish mapping there before returning to map an area east of the Atchafalaya River.

The low-oxygen area is linked to high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, the main ingredients of agricultural fertilizers, and other nutrients carried by the Mississippi River from the Midwest into the Gulf. There, they feed springtime and summertime blooms of algae at the surface, which sink to the bottom and decompose when they die, using up oxygen in the water.

It's still unclear what effect, if any, the oil spill had on the size of this year's zone, Rabalais said. "We only saw a little bit of oil during our cruise, the obvious streaks and mousse on the surface at the river delta," she said in an interview.

"It's a very difficult question to study, even if we knew exactly where the oil had been," Rabalais said. "For it to have an effect on oxygen content, it would have to cover an area for a long time, and being out there myself and seeing it, it comes and goes and is never in the same place long enough.

"What we don't know is how much we've got on the bottom," she said, "but our low oxygen values are no larger than in other summers.".

Rabalais said she accidentally surfaced into an oil slick while scuba diving in May during an earlier research cruise.

The dead-zone size estimated by cruise scientists matches predictions made earlier this year by LSU biologist Eugene Turner, who predicted a range of sizes averaging 7,776 square miles, based on measurements of the nutrients carried by the Mississippi this spring. The large area was driven by high river conditions during much of the spring and summer, Rabalais said.

"We had four peak discharges this year, beginning in January," she said. "We're coming down from a peak discharge now, and are well above the average" flow of freshwater from the Mississippi into the Gulf. On Monday, the river was at 7.9 feet at New Orleans, while a year ago, it was at a more normal summer level of 4.4 feet.

Oxygen levels of less than 2 parts per million, which are considered hypoxia, can kill organisms in bottom sediment in the Gulf that are the source of food for other species, like shrimp and fish.

The Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force has a goal of reducing the average size of dead zones to 1,900 square miles by 2015. Plans call for doing that largely through voluntary efforts aimed at lowering farm fertilizer use, creating wetland and grassy areas on the edges of farmland, and asking industries, urban sewage systems and septic tank owners to reduce emissions.

"It is time for the states and federal agencies in the Dead Zone Taskforce to show some urgency for cleaning up the Mississippi River and the Gulf," said Matt Rota, water resources program director for the New Orleans-based Gulf Restoration Network. "We need to take the current 'In-Action Plan' and give it some teeth, with enforceable timelines and goals. Without these, we are just going to see the dead zone get worse."

Last August, the EPA Office of Inspector General recommended that the agency set numerical standards for the amount of nutrients allowed in the Mississippi and other water bodies, because state governments had been too slow to adopt their own measures.

"Critical national waters such as the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River require standards that, once set, will affect multiple upstream states," the report said. "These states have not yet set nutrient standards for themselves; consequently it is EPA's responsibility to act."

This year's mapping found a patchwork of low-oxygen areas, rather than the usual continuous band of low oxygen along the coast, Rabalais said. That might be the result of mixing of oxygen-containing water on the surface with deeper water during Hurricane Alex, which crossed the southwestern Gulf in late June and early July, and Tropical Storm Bonnie two weeks ago.

August 15, 2008 | 8

Fertilizer runoff and fossil-fuel use lead to massive areas in the ocean with scant or no oxygen, killing large swaths of sea life and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage
By David Biello |

DEAD ZONE: Waters with little or no oxygen continue to form in coastal areas worldwide thanks to fertilizer washing off agricultural fields and fossil fuel burning.

Image: COURTESY OF SCIENCE/AAAS

More bad news for the world's oceans: Dead zones—areas of bottom waters too oxygen depleted to support most ocean life—are spreading, dotting nearly the entire east and south coasts of the U.S. as well as several west coast river outlets.

According to a new study in Science, the rest of the world fares no better—there are now 405 identified dead zones worldwide, up from 49 in the 1960s—and the world's largest dead zone remains the Baltic Sea, whose bottom waters now lack oxygen year-round.

Click here to see a map of dead zones around the world.

This is no small economic matter. A single low-oxygen event (known scientifically as hypoxia) off the coasts of New York State and New Jersey in 1976 covering a mere 385 square miles (1,000 square kilometers) of seabed ended up costing commercial and recreational fisheries in the region more than $500 million. As it stands, roughly 83,000 tons (75,000 metric tons) of fish and other ocean life are lost to the Chesapeake Bay dead zone each year—enough to feed half the commercial crab catch for a year.

"More than 212,000 metric tons [235,000 tons] of food is lost to hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico," says marine biologist Robert Diaz of The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., who surveyed the dead zones along with marine ecologist Rutger Rosenberg of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. "That's enough to feed 75 percent of the average brown shrimp harvest from the Louisiana gulf. If there was no hypoxia and there was that much more food, don't you think the shrimp and crabs would be happier? They would certainly be fatter."

Only a few dead zones have ever recovered, such as the Black Sea, which rebounded quickly in the 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union and a massive reduction in fertilizer runoff from fields in Russia and Ukraine. Fertilizer contains large amounts of nitrogen, and it runs off of agricultural fields in water and into rivers, and eventually into oceans.

This fertilizer runoff, instead of contributing to more corn or wheat, feeds massive algae blooms in the coastal oceans. This algae, in turn, dies and sinks to the bottom where it is consumed by microbes, which consume oxygen in the process. More algae means more oxygen-burning, and thereby less oxygen in the water, resulting in a massive flight by those fish, crustaceans and other ocean-dwellers able to relocate as well as the mass death of immobile creatures, such as clams or other bottom-dwellers. And that's when the microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments take over, forming vast bacterial mats that produce hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas.

"The primary culprit in marine environments is nitrogen and, nowadays, the biggest contributor of nitrogen to marine systems is agriculture. It's the same scenario all over the world," Diaz says. "Farmers are not doing it on purpose. They'd prefer to have it stick on the land."

In addition to fertilizers, the other primary culprit is the consumption of fossil fuels. Burning gasoline and diesel results in smog-forming nitrogen oxides, which subsequently clear when rain washes the nitrogen out of the sky and, ultimately, into the ocean.

Technological improvements, such as electric or hydrogen cars, could solve that problem but the agricultural question is trickier. "Nitrogen is very slippery; it's very difficult to keep it on land," Diaz notes. "We need to find a technology to keep nitrogen from leaving the soil."

Eutrophication was first evident in lakes and rivers as they became choked with excessive growth of rooted plants and floating algal scums, prompting intense study in the 1960's-70's and culminating in the scientific basis for banning phosphate detergents (a major source of P, the most frequent culprit in eutrophication of lakes) and upgrading sewage treatment to reduce wastewater N and P discharges to inland waters. Symptoms of eutrophication in estuaries and other coastal marine ecosystems (where N is the most frequent contributor to eutrophication) were clearly evident by the 1980's, as human activities doubled the transport of N and tripled the transport of P from Earth's land surface to its oceans. Eutrophication has emerged as a key human stressor on the world's coastal ecosystems.

Nutrient enrichment of marine waters promotes the growth of algae, either as attached multicellular forms (e.g. sea lettuce) or as suspended microscopic phytoplankton, because algae can grow faster than larger vascular plants. Small increases in algal abundance or biomass have subtle ecological responses that can increase production in food webs sustaining fish and shellfish, even producing higher fish yields. However, over-stimulation of algal growth leads to a complex suite of interconnected biological and chemical responses that can severely degrade water quality and threaten human health and sustainability of living resources in the coastal zone.

As algal biomass builds during blooms it forms aggregates that sink and fuel bacterial growth in bottom waters and sediments. Bacterial metabolism consumes oxygen. If the rates of aeration of water by mixing are slower than bacterial metabolism, then bottom waters become hypoxic (low in oxygen) or anoxic (devoid of oxygen), creating conditions stressful or even lethal for marine invertebrates and fish. Seasonal occurrences of dead zones devoid of oxygen and animal life have expanded in the Gulf of Mexico (where the dead zone has approached the size of New Jersey), the Baltic Sea, and Sea of Marmara as a consequence of eutrophication from nutrients delivered by large rivers.

Seagrasses are important communities in undisturbed shallow coastal ecosystems, providing essential habitat for many species of marine animals. The distribution and abundance of seagrasses have greatly diminished in nutrient-enriched coastal waters, such as Chesapeake Bay and Danish estuaries, where water transparency and light availability to rooted plants have declined as result of phytoplankton growth and fouling of the grass blades by epiphytes and biofilms. These habitat changes propagate through food webs, and the abundance and species diversity of fish and shellfish decrease as seagrasses are eliminated from nutrient-enriched coastal waters.

Some phytoplankton species excrete large quantities of mucilage during blooms that is whipped into foam by wind mixing and washes ashore, making beaches undesirable for holiday visitors. Other phytoplankton species produce toxic chemicals that can impair respiratory, nervous, digestive and reproductive system function, and even cause death of fish, shellfish, seabirds, mammals, and humans. The economic impacts of harmful algal blooms can be severe as tourism is lost and shellfish harvest and fishing are closed across increasingly widespread marine regions. Marine scientists are trying to determine if and how nutrient enrichment selectively promotes the growth of harmful algal species, and if the frequency of harmful algal blooms has increased globally in response to nutrient enrichment.

Aug. 14, 2006

ScienceDaily

The most severe low-oxygen ocean conditions ever observed on the West Coast of the United States have turned parts of the seafloor off Oregon into a carpet of dead Dungeness crabs and rotting sea worms, a new survey shows. Virtually all of the fish appear to have fled the area.

Fish migrationScientists, who this week had been looking for signs of the end of this "dead zone," have instead found even more extreme drops in oxygen along the seafloor. This is by far the worst such event since the phenomenon was first identified in 2002, according to researchers at Oregon State University. Levels of dissolved oxygen are approaching zero in some locations.

"We saw a crab graveyard and no fish the entire day," said Jane Lubchenco, the Valley Professor of Marine Biology at OSU. "Thousands and thousands of dead crab and molts were littering the ocean floor, many sea stars were dead, and the fish have either left the area or have died and been washed away.

"Seeing so much carnage on the video screens was shocking and depressing," she said.

OSU scientists with the university-based Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans, in collaboration with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, used a remotely operated underwater vehicle this week to document the magnitude of the biological impacts and continue oxygen sampling. This recent low-oxygen event began about a month ago, and its effects are now obvious.

Any level of dissolved oxygen below 1.4 milliliters per liter is considered hypoxic for most marine life. In the latest findings from one area off Cape Perpetua on the central Oregon coast, surveys showed 0.5 milliliters per liter in 45 feet of water; 0.08 in 90 feet; and 0.14 at 150 feet depth. These are levels 10-30 times lower than normal. In one extreme measurement, the oxygen level was 0.05, or close to zero. Oxygen levels that low have never before been measured off the U.S. West Coast.

"Some of the worst conditions are now approaching what we call anoxia, or the absence of oxygen," said Francis Chan, a marine ecologist with OSU and PISCO. "This can lead to a whole different set of chemical reactions, things like the production of hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas. It's hard to tell just how much mortality, year after year, these systems are going to be able to take."

One of the areas sampled is a rocky reef not far from Yachats, Ore. Ordinarily it's prime rockfish habitat, swarming with black rockfish, ling cod, kelp greenling, and canary rockfish, and the seafloor crawls with large populations of Dungeness crab, sea stars, sea anemones and other marine life.

This week, it is covered in dead and rotting crabs, the fish are gone, and worms that ordinarily burrow into the soft sediments have died and are floating on the bottom.

The water just off the bottom is filled with a massive amount of what researchers call "marine snow" -- fragments of dead pieces of marine life, mostly jellyfish and other invertebrates. As this dead material decays, it is colonized by bacteria that further suck any remaining oxygen out of the water.

"We can't be sure what happened to all the fish, but it's clear they are gone," Lubchenco said. "We are receiving anecdotal reports of rockfish in very shallow waters where they ordinarily are not found. It's likely those areas have higher oxygen levels."

The massive phytoplankton bloom that has contributed to this dead zone has turned large areas of the ocean off Oregon a dirty chocolate brown, the OSU researchers said.

Scientists observed similar but not identical problems in other areas. Some had fewer dead crabs, but still no fish. In one area off Waldport, Ore., that's known for good fishing and crabbing, there were no fish and almost no live crabs.

The exact geographic scope of the problem is unknown, but this year for the first time it has also been observed in waters off the Washington coast as well as Oregon. Due to its intensity, scientists say it's virtually certain to have affected marine life in areas beyond those they have actually documented.

This is the fifth year in a row a dead zone has developed off the Oregon Coast, but none of the previous events were of this magnitude, and they have varied somewhat in their causes and effects. Earlier this year, strong upwelling winds allowed a low-oxygen pool of deep water to build up. That pool has now come closer to shore and is suffocating marine life on a massive scale.

Some strong southerly winds might help push the low-oxygen water further out to sea and reduce the biological impacts, Lubchenco said. The current weather forecast, however, is for just the opposite to occur and for the dead zone event to continue.

There are no seafood safety issues that consumers need to be concerned about, OSU experts say. Only live crabs and other fresh seafood are processed for sale.

Researchers from OSU, PISCO and other state and federal agencies are developing a better understanding of how these dead zone events can occur on a local basis. But it's still unclear why the problem has become an annual event.

Ordinarily, north winds drive ocean currents that provide nutrients to the productive food webs and fisheries of the Pacific Northwest. These crucial currents can also carry naturally low oxygen waters shoreward, setting the stage for dead zone events. Changes in wind patterns can disrupt the balance between productive food webs and dead zones.

This breakdown does not appear to be linked to ocean cycles such as El Niño or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Extreme and unusual fluctuations in wind patterns and ocean currents are consistent with the predicted impacts of some global climate change models, scientists say, but they cannot yet directly link these events to climate change or global warming.

Dead birds, dead fish, and dead crabs, are the latest casualties that are found around the globe in the last few days. As of today, there are 12 different locations around the globe that have seen dead birds or dead fish, and dead crabs surfacing in one spot in England. Making it a total of 13 places in the world that dead carcasses have been documented within just a few days time.

*On December 30th, the first of the dead fish surfaced in Rio De Janerio Brazil. Sardines, croakers, and catfish started to wash ashore dead. The total for the dead fish coming ashore was 100 tons over the next few days.

*On December 31st the first of the dead bird phenomenon’s were reported in Bebe Arkansas. Thousands of redwing blackbirds fell to their death from mid air flight.

*On January 1st Kentucky had hundreds of dead birds found near the Murray State university.

*On January 3rd, 100,000 dead drum fish found along a 20 mile stretch of the Arkansas river.

On January 4th, 500 dead redwing blackbirds were found scattered along a quarter of a mile span of highway in Point Coupee Parish, Louisiana.

*On January 4th, hundreds of fish washed up on the shore of the St. Clair River in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada.

*On January 4th, in Orange Florida thousands of dead fish line the banks of Spruce Creek.

*On January 5th, Chesapeake Bay in Maryland saw 2 million fish wash onto the shore.

*On January 5th, 200 Dead birds are found in Tyler, Texas on a bridge on highway 155 over the Lake O’Pines.

*On January 5th , in Wilson Tennessee, 150 dead grackles found on the side of the road near Lebanon. (The birds had been there for several days)

*On January 5th, in Falkoeping, West Sweden, 50-100 crows were found dead along a street.

*On January 5th, Kent England, 40,000 velvet swimming crabs wash ashore dead.

*On January 5th in New Zealand, hundreds of snapper fish, many missing their eyes wash ashore on the Coromandel Peninsula.

These are the 13 incidents up to date around the globe according to the National Post News

There is nothing new about these types of incidents. In 1895, the New York Times ran a story about how Connecticut lakes saw dead fish wash ashore in thousands. With no way to clean them up, due to the lack of a formal sanitation department in those days, the fish tainted the water with their rotting carcasses. This was one incident, as many isolated incidents occur world wide. It is just that all these dead bird and dead fish happenings have occurred around the globe with in a few days time. The Connecticut lakes in 1895 were one of many seeing dead fish through the years, and it will continue to happen, but the odd part is that they are concentrated into a short time block.

Continue reading on Examiner.com: Dead birds, dead fish, and now crabs total 13 global events so far (list) - Hartford Pop Culture | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/pop-culture-in-hartford/dead-birds-and-dead-fish-and-dead-crabs-total-13-global-events-so-far#ixzz1GRq2ZIKR

By: Mark Johnson

CLEVELAND - I've added several more mass death reports to the initial story here. By my count, we've seen at least a dozen of these events just in the last month! Leave your comments below. I offer no opinions as to their cause. I've included some "official" explanations, but I leave it up to you to ponder why these events seem to be happening all at once... For possible explanations for the recent animal deaths, click here.

UPDATE 16: COW TIPPING in WISCONSIN. One field...one farmer... 200 dead cows! This weekend, a shocked farmer in Town of Stockton, Wisconsin discovered his entire herd of cows had just dropped dead. The farmer believes the cows died of a respiratory virus... Samples from the cows have been shipped off to a local veterinarian for testing in hopes of nailing down the official cause. Officials day the dead cows pose no threat to humans...Got that Moulder?

UPDATE 15: WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM. The latest news from Southeast Asia this weekend: 7000 dead buffalo and cows from Vietnam. Wildlife Officials in Vietnam say 7000 total deaths have been reported from all of Vietnamese provinces over the past few weeks. 700 animals went down this past weekend alone. The reason, farmers say, is the unusually cold winter weather. According to a local news source there, the livestock are literally freezing to death.

UPDATE 14: CALIFORNIA BIRDS "WERE COMMITTING SUICIDE." Alfred Hitchcock made a memorable movie called "The Birds." The film was actually shot in Sonoma County, California in a town called Bodega Bay. Well, this past week, 100 dead birds were found scattered along the highway a few miles inland from the sleepy sea-side town. The birds were found along Highway 101 between the towns of Healdsburg and Geyservile, about an hour north of San Francisco, in the heart of Sonoma Wine Country. The birds, all European Starlings, suffered blunt force trauma as a result of a close encounter with a semi-tractor trailer rig. According to a witness, the birds were flying low to the ground when they collided with the truck. The witness told Fish and Game investigators that it looked as though the birds "were committing suicide."

UPDATE 13: DON'T DRINK AND FLY! I guess birds can't hold their alcohol well! In Budapest Romania, hundreds of starlings dropped dead this week in a the Black Sea community of Constanta. What killed them? They died of alcohol poisoning! Apparently, since food is scarce this time of year, the birds found a delicious, readily available meal at the local winery. The birds gorged themselves on the fermenting grape mash...the leftover skins and stems that are discarded after the grape juice is pressed out. Wineries often pile the refuse outside and then recycle it back into the soil at a later time. Well, this time the birds got to it first. According to local veterinarians, they first got drunk, and then died of alcohol poisoning.

UPDATE 12: FROZEN FISH IN CHICAGO HARBORS. Wildlife officers in Chicago are investigating a major fish die-off along the lakefront. Thousands of 3 to 5-inch gizzard shad are entombed in harbor ice or floating dead in nearby open pools. Local fisherman are surprised at the sight but agree that the extreme cold of December and the early onset of ice in the local harbors likely doomed the yearling fish. Gizzard shad are members of the herring family. They are reportedly more sensitive to drops in oxygen levels than most other fish. Thick ice covering the local harbors cut the oxygen levels in the water before the fish could build up enough strength to last the winter.

UPDATE 11: TOO MUCH WATER FOR THE FISH. Heavy rains in Australia over the past month, have caused rivers to rise to historic levels. The flooded areas, in fact, were the size of France and Germany combined. You wouldn't think that lots of water would kill fish, but its happening "Down Under". Locals near Woolwash Lagoon, just south of Rockhampton report 5,000 to 7,000 dead fish covering 11 different species. Hundreds of fish have died on the Goulburn River between Shepparton and Echuca in Victoria. The massive flooding in these areas during December caused rotting vegetation. Microorganisms on the the rotting vegetation then stole most of the oxygen from the nearly waters.

UPDATE 10: STARFISH DON'T LIKE THE COLD. If you want to walk on the beaches near Charleston, South Carolina, watch your step. The beaches along the Isles of Palms are littered with hundreds of dead starfish and jellyfish. Since the middle of December, dead sea creatures have been washing up on shore. Marine Biologists believe that cold weather may be to blame. A frigid December in the Carolinas, has dropped the temperature of the Charleston Harbor into the upper 40s. That's just too cold for warm-water loving creatures. Keep your fingers crossed that the crabs, shrimp and sea turtles can stay warm enough to survive...

UPDATE 9: PELICANS IN PERIL. Its not safe to be a pelican in North Carolina. During the month of December, more than 100 of these protected birds died under suspicious circumstances along the beaches of Topsail Island. Most of the birds were stabbed, shot, decapitated or de-winged. Authorities believe the deaths were deliberate and malicious. It appears the birds are killed off shore and then washed up on the beaches during high tied. The US Fish and Wildlife Agency is now involved and says the person or persons responsible for the killings could face federal charges.

UPDATE 8: AND A PARTRIDGE INA PEAR TREE. I have a hard time reading Italian, but I'll give it my best shot. According to Italy's GEA PRESS, 8-thousand turtle doves fell from the sky last week into the town Faenza, Italy. What's more, the birds had mysterious blue stains on their beaks. Early lab tests show the blue stain was either caused by poisoning or hypoxia. Hypoxia is the lack of oxygen that usually results when birds fly too high in the atmosphere. Its a common cause of confusion and sickness in winged animals. One wildlife authority surmised that the birds were caught up in a high altitude wind storm just before plummeting to their deaths...

UPDATE 7: FISH FARM FOLLY. If you enjoy eating Red Talapia fish, then, chances are, your dinner was farm raised in Vietnam. Millions of these fast-growing, low-mercury fish are raised on aquiculture farms there. During the last week of December, officials report more than 150-tons of Talapia died on 41 separate river farms. The cost? A full 35-billion Vietnamese Dollars. The cause? Low oxygen in the water, too many fish in each pen...

UPDATE 6: BAD NEWS FOR PENGUINS. In New Zealand, dead penguins had been washing up on northern beaches for several weeks now. The country's Conservation Department said penguins, petrels and other seabirds were already dying in large numbers. Autopsies show they all starved to death. The current La Nina weather pattern has reduced the fish population in the area. The fish have moved. So, now the birds can't find enough food to feed themselves and their young...

UPDATE 5: GOING BATTY! First birds, then fish...now bats. 70 bats were found dead in Tuscon, Arizona last week. A man walking his dog found the dead Mexican Free-tailed bats on a walking path under a bridge on December 28th. The bat carcasses have been sent off to the Arizona Department of health Services for testing. Officials surmise that unseasonably warm weather may have caused the bat deaths. These bats, according to wildlife experts, should have migrated to Mexico two months ago...

UPDATE 4: A SHAD SHOCK! This one is closer to home...Wildlife officers in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada report a large fish kill in the St. Clair River just across the border from Detroit this week. Hundreds of shad that washed up on shore supposedly died from temperature shock. The Ministry of Natural Resources in Sarnia says that the warm weather around New Years Day followed by a quick cold spell doomed the fish. This is not an usual occurance, say officials. But, it usually happens in spring.

UPDATE 3: CRABS CROWDING UK BEACHES. First birds and fish...now its CRABS! Reports today say that more than 40,000 Velvet Swimming Crabs have been found dead on UK beaches. And, on top of that, among the dead crabs, there's dead lobster, starfish, anemone, & sponges. The cause of this mysterious mass death? Officials believe its the extreme cold weather. According to wildlife advocates from the Thanet Coast Project, the sea creatures began washing up when snow and cold blasted Europe right around Christmas. Crabs and starfish like warm water. They usually come closer to shore in the winter to feast in the seaweed colonies. They were caught in the rapidly-arriving cold and snow over the passed few weeks.

UPDATE 2: DEAD FISH AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE. Now its New Zealand! Local newspapers near the Coromandel beaches on the North Island of New Zealand report hundreds of dead snapper fish washing ashore this week. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the fish line the shore as far as the eye can see. Officials surmise the fish starved to death due to adverse weather conditions. But, local residents contend many of the snapper looked fat and healthy. The Fisheries Ministry is currently investigating the situation.

UPDATE 1: COUNTING CROWS. Two more reports of bird deaths just in! Swedish authorities are investigating the deaths of 100 crows in the town of Falkoping, a city near Skovde. No cause can be ascertained yet.

Word out of Kentucky today that several hundred blackbirds, grackles and starlings were found dead last week near Murray, in the western portion of the state. A spokesman for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources confirmed the deaths and said that several of the dead birds have been analyzed. The tests performed on the birds ruled out diseases or poisons. That leaves the probable cause of death as weather or some other natural event. ######

5,000 birds falling from the sky in Beebe, Arkansas. That was on New Years Eve. The next day we hear reports of 100,000 fish dying and washing up along an Arkansas river. On Monday, another 500 birds were found dead near a highway just north of Baton Rouge, La.

Now, today we hear more bad news for wildlife. Thousands of dead fish washed ashore along the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland in the past two weeks. In Brazil, its 100-tons of sardines and small catfish that have died.

So what gives? Are these kills related somehow? U.S. Wildlife Officials say large bird and fish kills are not uncommon things. In fact, there have been 90 mass deaths of birds and wildlife reported in the U.S. just in the last six months. Most succumb to disease or parasites. In Houston, Minnesota, a parasite infestations killed about 4,000 water birds between September and the end of November, 2010.

In Baton Rouge, officials believe the roosting flock of blackbirds were spooked by a noise and struck nearby power lines. The cause of the bird deaths in Beebe, Arkansas is still being debated. One theory says that fireworks from local New Years Eve celebrations may have spooked the birds, causing them to become disoriented. A biologist from Cornell University offers another plausible explanation. He said the sleeping birds may have been sucked up into a thunderstorm by a strong updraft of wind. The birds could then have become disoriented, injured by hail or lightning, before falling to their deaths.

As for the fish deaths, officials believe the unusually cold weather in Maryland was responsible for the Chesapeake Bay fish kill. Biologists aren't sure why about 100,000 drum fish washed up on the Arkansas River last week. In Brazil, wildlife experts are still puzzled about the fish deaths there.

(3 Aug. 2010 Update: The number of dead fish and other water-dependent wildlife totaled over 6 million.) Due to the extremely high degree of interest and numerous comments generated by this disaster, we interviewed authorities and took them the questions YOU posted in our forums. Here's what caused the fish and other wildlife to die. The pink river dolphins were rescued and moved to a safe area! --- We ask you to be a bit patient as this page loads due to the many MANY comments that have been sent in.

----- ORIGINAL POSTING -----

July 2010: Over 1 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles, dolphins and other river wildlife are floating dead in numerous Bolivian rivers in the three eastern/southern departments of Santa Cruz, Beni and Tarija. The extreme cold front that hit Bolivia in mid-July caused water temperatures to dip below the minimum temperatures river life can tolerate. As a consequence, rivers, lakes, lagoons and fisheries are brimming with decomposing fish and other creatures.

Unprecedented: Nothing like this has ever been seen in this magnitude in Bolivia. Inhabitants of riverside communities report the smell is nauseating and can be detected as far as a kilometer away from river banks. River communities, whose livelihoods depend on fishing, fear they'll run out of food and will have nothing to sell. Authorities are concerned there will be a shortage of fish in markets and are more concerned by possible threats to public health, especially in communities that also use river water for bathing and drinking, but also fear contaminated or decaying fish may end up in market stalls. They've begun a campaign to ensure market vendors and the public know how to tell the difference between fresh and unhealthy fish.

In university fish ponds and commercial fisheries the losses are also catastrophic.

For automatic updates on this and other news stories, please subscribe to the BoliviaBella.com Blog. We'll run more information on it when we have news.

January 26, 2009

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — Hundreds of dead birds fell onto homes and cars in parts of a Somerset County town this weekend.

Andrea Kipec, who lives in the southern part of Franklin Township, told the Courier News of Bridgewater that she counted more than 150 dead birds on her property. And she said local officials told her that she had to clean them up.

RELATED STORIES

However, Donna Leusner — a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services — said Sunday night that the dead birds were part of a USDA program to reduce the European starling population.

Leusner told The Star-Ledger of Newark that her department wasn't part of the culling program, but said it had been told of plans to feed the birds a "controlled substance." She could not say where they were poisoned or what was used to kill them.

"The dead birds pose no hazard to people or pets because the substance has been metabolized inside the bird," Leusner said, citing information in a USDA advisory.

That statement said the culling was done because European starlings "congregate at feed lots and dairies in the winter, causing damage by consuming and contaminating seed and contributing to the spread of diseases."

Related Links:

Angels Don't Play this HAARP - video describes a massive radio-transmitter in Alaska operated by the Department of Defense known as the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2804238542173218531#

How Cell Phones are Killing Birds http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/01/15/how-cell-phones-are-killing-birds.aspx

Other Mass Animal Deaths and Information

Dead Birds Fall From Sky In Sweden, Millions Of Dead Fish Found In Maryland, Brazil, New Zealand http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/05/dead-birds-fall-from-sky-_n_804591.html

INFOGRAPHS - Mass animal deaths in winter 2010-2011 http://rianovosti.com/infographics/20110112/162112641.html

" List of 40 Countries with Mass Animal Deaths Including the 18 States in the U.S." http://www.eutimes.net/2011/01/birds-and-fish-are-now-dying-all-around-the-world/

10 Strange Mass Animal Deaths http://smashingusa.com/10-strange-mass-animal-deaths-ever/

10 Other Mass Animal Deaths in the Past http://www.inflexwetrust.com/2011/01/06/photos-10-other-mass-animal-deaths-in-the-past/

200 Dead Cows Found in Wisconsin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/18/200-dead-cows-wisconsin_n_810248.html

Birds Fall From Sky In California, Thousands Of Dead Fish Found In Chicago http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/birds-fall-from-sky-california_n_807330.html

Dead penguins wash up on Brazil's beaches http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/21/dead-penguins-brazil-beaches

10,000 Cattle Dead In Vietnam: Cows, Buffalo Part Of Mass Die-Off< http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/21/10000-cattle-dead-vietnam_n_812224.html