QUOTE
Mystery killer of ocean birds revealed
VIRGINIA SMITH
August 01, 2005
The hundreds of greater shearwaters that washed up dead and dying along
the east coast last month most likely starved, scientists say -- simple
as that. And it wasn't the first time, either.
Volusia County rehabilitators were alarmed when some 300 of the
open-sea birds came ashore, and reports from the Carolinas of staggering,
disoriented shearwaters led to official warnings not to handle them, lest
they harbor a dangerous virus.
Though a federal wildlife lab is still testing some of the carcasses
that washed up as far north as Massachusetts, seeking evidence of
infection, they've found nothing so far.
"My guess is they starved," said Emi Saito of the U.S. Geological
Survey's Wildlife Health Lab in Madison, Wis.
Fishermen guessed the same after dozens of desperate shearwaters
swarmed their boats, and others, apparently too hungry to be aggressive, sat
listless in the water.
"You always see a few clustering around picking on some bait," said
Chip Dodson, who fishes off Eastville, Va. "But not 40 or 50 at a time."
When Dodson threw fish scraps into the water, "they were diving down 20
feet for them," he said.
David Lee, curator emeritus of birds at the North Carolina Museum of
Natural Sciences, said he was baffled by all the head-scratching over the
shearwater die-off when he and other researchers had been documenting
such die-offs for years and filing their reports to federal agencies.
Greater shearwaters, Lee explained, nest on isolated islands in the
southern hemisphere. In the early part of summer, the adults finish up
feeding their young and leave and head north toward the cool, oxygen-rich
waters of the Grand Banks, where fish and squid are abundant. The young
birds stay in their southern nesting grounds for several weeks
afterward, burning up baby fat and exercising their wings. Then they head
north.
Some years "the Atlantic is so hot that there's not much oxygen at the
surface and then in the Doldrums" -- a belt of low pressure around the
equator -- "sometimes there is no wind for days or weeks," Lee said in
an e-mail. "The birds are stuck in the Doldrums (much like sailing
ships of old) and start to starve."
By the time they're east of U.S. shores, many of these young
shearwaters are dead or pretty close. The Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet
treated 75 live shearwaters last month, but all died within days. Three
times that many came in as carcasses.
Greater shearwaters, though seldom seen in nearshore waters, are a
common species, with an estimated 5 million pairs around the world. Massive
die-offs of a million shearwaters or more have been reported in the
southern hemisphere, and though the numbers have never been quite so high
here, minor die-offs "seem to happen every decade or so, though there
is no pattern," Lee said.
A careful review of the literature, he added, might have saved a few
taxpayer dollars.
"It would be fun to know how much money was transferred to look at this
dead shearwater situation. The answer was there."
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJour...01ENV080105.htm
-----
Adios
Chad
VIRGINIA SMITH
August 01, 2005
The hundreds of greater shearwaters that washed up dead and dying along
the east coast last month most likely starved, scientists say -- simple
as that. And it wasn't the first time, either.
Volusia County rehabilitators were alarmed when some 300 of the
open-sea birds came ashore, and reports from the Carolinas of staggering,
disoriented shearwaters led to official warnings not to handle them, lest
they harbor a dangerous virus.
Though a federal wildlife lab is still testing some of the carcasses
that washed up as far north as Massachusetts, seeking evidence of
infection, they've found nothing so far.
"My guess is they starved," said Emi Saito of the U.S. Geological
Survey's Wildlife Health Lab in Madison, Wis.
Fishermen guessed the same after dozens of desperate shearwaters
swarmed their boats, and others, apparently too hungry to be aggressive, sat
listless in the water.
"You always see a few clustering around picking on some bait," said
Chip Dodson, who fishes off Eastville, Va. "But not 40 or 50 at a time."
When Dodson threw fish scraps into the water, "they were diving down 20
feet for them," he said.
David Lee, curator emeritus of birds at the North Carolina Museum of
Natural Sciences, said he was baffled by all the head-scratching over the
shearwater die-off when he and other researchers had been documenting
such die-offs for years and filing their reports to federal agencies.
Greater shearwaters, Lee explained, nest on isolated islands in the
southern hemisphere. In the early part of summer, the adults finish up
feeding their young and leave and head north toward the cool, oxygen-rich
waters of the Grand Banks, where fish and squid are abundant. The young
birds stay in their southern nesting grounds for several weeks
afterward, burning up baby fat and exercising their wings. Then they head
north.
Some years "the Atlantic is so hot that there's not much oxygen at the
surface and then in the Doldrums" -- a belt of low pressure around the
equator -- "sometimes there is no wind for days or weeks," Lee said in
an e-mail. "The birds are stuck in the Doldrums (much like sailing
ships of old) and start to starve."
By the time they're east of U.S. shores, many of these young
shearwaters are dead or pretty close. The Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet
treated 75 live shearwaters last month, but all died within days. Three
times that many came in as carcasses.
Greater shearwaters, though seldom seen in nearshore waters, are a
common species, with an estimated 5 million pairs around the world. Massive
die-offs of a million shearwaters or more have been reported in the
southern hemisphere, and though the numbers have never been quite so high
here, minor die-offs "seem to happen every decade or so, though there
is no pattern," Lee said.
A careful review of the literature, he added, might have saved a few
taxpayer dollars.
"It would be fun to know how much money was transferred to look at this
dead shearwater situation. The answer was there."
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJour...01ENV080105.htm
-----
Adios
Chad
Source