tagged w/ Bird Conservation
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Penguin rescue operation under way after south Atlantic oil spill
By David Ariosto, CNN
April 2, 2011 9:36 p.m. EDT
The M.S. Oliva ran aground, fracturing its hull and ultimately splitting the vessel in two.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Rescuers are struggling to save tens of thousands of Northern Rockhopper penguins
The penguins are threatened by an oil spill following a shipwreck near remote island chain
At least 300 penguins have died since the spill, local officials say
(CNN) -- On an island chain located halfway between Africa and Argentina, local authorities say a massive penguin rescue operation is under way.
A mix of island officials and resident volunteers are struggling to save tens of thousands of Northern Rockhopper penguins threatened by an oil spill in the remote stretches of the south Atlantic, roughly 1,500 miles west of Cape Town, South Africa.
The islands' conservation director said at least 300 penguins have died after a cargo ship leaked thousands of tons of heavy oil, diesel fuel and soya bean near Nightingale Island, a British territory part of the Tristan da Cunha archipelago.
"I've seen about 15 to 20 dead penguins just today," director Trevor Glass said.
Thousands more are covered in the ships' oil and diesel fuel, according to local officials and conservationists.
"The danger now is getting the rest of these penguins past that oil slick," Glass said.
The rescue operation began shortly after March 16, when the M.S. Oliva -- a Maltese-registered ship -- ran aground, fracturing its hull and ultimately splitting the vessel in two.
The ship was heading from Santos, Brazil, to Singapore and had been carrying 60,000 metric tons of soya beans and 1,500 metric tons of heavy fuel, according to islands' administrator Sean Burns and Transport Malta, the Maltese shipping authority.
The agency said in a statement that it "is investigating the grounding and subsequent complete hull failure" of the bulk carrier cargo ship.
The dramatic rescue of the ship's 22 crew members was captured on video, along with the spills' aftermath, which showed penguins soaked in heavy oil.
It was shot by an expedition team from an eco-tourism ship -- called SilverSea -- whose crew used inflatable boats to help ferry the sailors to safety, according to David E. Guggenheim of the Washington-based Ocean Foundation. Guggenheim witnessed the rescue aboard the vessel, called the Prince Albert II.
Since then, an oil sheen has surrounded the island chain, which officials say could lead to an environmental disaster.
Rescue workers, using inflatable watercraft and fishing vessels, are now ferrying penguins to a series of makeshift rehabilitation centers at the main island of Tristan da Cunha, according to Glass.
There, he added, conservationists and volunteers are working in an effort to nurse the blackened penguins back to health.
"We need help," said Katrine Herian, a spokeswoman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds who is also apart of the ongoing rescue effort.
"The priority is to get food into the birds as they are very hungry," she said. "We are trying locally caught fish and some are starting to take small half-inch squares of the food."
Herian noted that some of the islands' residents had emptied their personal freezers in an effort to help feed the animals.
By Friday, Glass said his team had corralled and transported a total of nearly 5,000 penguins, despite harsh winds and high seas that had hampered earlier rescue attempts.
But the timing of their task is daunting.
The shipwreck, having occurred at the end of the birds' molting season -- a period during which penguins shed their feathers, do not eat and largely stay out of the water -- left the birds "at their weakest possible state," Guggenheim explained. "They're very hungry."
The season's end also marks the beginning of a period when penguins re-enter the sea, now laden with heavy oil and soya beans.
In a written statement, Tristin da Cunha administrator Burns said it is unclear what the impact of the ship's cargo will have on the local marine environment, particularly "any long-term effect on the economically valuable fishing industry for crawfish, crayfish or Tristan Rock Lobster ... which is the mainstay of Tristan da Cunha's economy."
Fewer than 300 people live on the island chain, eclipsed by the its massive penguin population -- estimated at 150,000 -- which accounts for roughly 40 percent of the world's total, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a global network of conservationists.
The Northern Rockhopper penguin had been listed as "one of the world's most threatened species of penguin," according to the RSPB.Penguin rescue operation under way after south Atlantic oil spill
By David Ariosto,... more
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Dead Birds Fall From Sky In Sweden, Millions Of Dead Fish Found In Maryland, Brazil, New Zealand
The Huffington Post | Travis Walter Donovan First Posted: 01- 5-11 09:11 AM | Updated: 01- 5-11 06:16 PM
UPDATE: Wildlife officials say that even more previously unreported dead birds were found in Kentucky last week.
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Millions of dead fish surfaced in Maryland's Chesapeake Bay in the U.S., Tuesday, while similar unexplained mass fish deaths occurred across the world in Brazil and New Zealand. On Wednesday, 50 birds were found dead on a street in Sweden. The news come after recents reports of mysterious massive bird and fish deaths days prior in Arkansas and Louisiana.
The Baltimore Sun reports that an estimated 2 million fish were found dead in the Chesapeake Bay, mostly adult spot with some juvenile croakers in the mix, as well. Maryland Department of the Environment spokesperson Dawn Stoltzfus says "cold-water stress" is believed to be the culprit. She told The Sun that similar large winter fish deaths were documented in 1976 and 1980.
ParanaOnline reports that 100 tons of sardines, croaker and catfish have washed up in Brazilian fishing towns since last Thursday. The cause of the deaths is unknown, with an imbalance in the environment, chemical pollution, or accidental release from a fishing boat all suggested by local officials.
In New Zealand, hundreds of dead snapper fish washed up on Coromandel Peninsula beaches, many found with their eyes missing, The New Zealand Herald reports. A Department of Conservation official allegedly claims the fish were starving due to weather conditions.
While all three events are likely unrelated, they come after recent reports of mysterious dead birds falling from the sky in both Arkansas and Louisiana. Thousands of dead birds were found in Beebe, Arkansas on New Year's Eve, and a few days later, around 500 of the same species were found 300 miles south in Louisiana. A Kentucky woman also reported finding dozens of dead birds scattered around her home. In the days prior to New Year's, nearly 100,000 fish surfaced in an Arkansas river 100 miles west of Beebe. Officials are now saying that fireworks likely caused the Arkansas bird deaths, and power lines may be to blame for the death of the birds in Louisiana.
Some remain skeptical of the explanations. Dan Cristol, a biology professor and co-founder of the Institute for Integrative Bird Behavior Studies at the College of William & Mary, told the AP that he was hesitant to believe fireworks were to blame unless "somebody blew something into the roost, literally blowing the birds into the sky."
Wednesday, officials in Sweden reported the finding of 50 dead birds on a street, suggesting that cold weather or fireworks were the likely culprit.
Bird deaths and fish kills at smaller numbers aren't all that uncommon, though the size and proximity of some of the recent events have led people to allege their relation, though officials deny the frequency of these wildlife deaths as being anything other than coincidence.
In August of 2010, tens of thousands of dead fish were reported washing ashore in two separate occasions, 200 miles apart on the East Coast.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------... more
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Brown pelican long a symbol of survival
By Wayne Drash, CNN
June 15, 2010 11:51 a.m. EDT
Photo: Oiled pelicans await treatment at the Fort Jackson Oiled Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Buras, Louisiana.
(CNN) -- Long before the brown pelican came to symbolize the tragedy of the Gulf oil spill, the giant bird stood for something much greater: survival against all odds.
The state bird of Louisiana was nearly wiped out by pesticides in the 1950s and 1960s. Yet after decades of conservation efforts, the brown pelican just last year was removed from the endangered species list.
"At a time when so many species of wildlife are threatened, we once in a while have an opportunity to celebrate an amazing success story," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar declared on November 11. "Today is such a day. The brown pelican is back."
Now, eight months later, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal stands on the deck of a boat near Pelican Island off the Louisiana coast. He's surveying efforts to protect the state's wetlands. He's ordered the National Guard to begin building barriers in the ocean to try to stop the oil from reaching shore.
Yet Jindal pauses to talk about the brown pelican. The recent images of pelicans, coated in BP oil like grotesque statues, have taken on the symbolism of the spill. Louisiana has long been known as the "Pelican State," with the bird gracing the state flag.
"Here's what's really sad," Jindal said. "For every one of those mother adult pelicans you're saving, there are many more back there that you can't get to. And for every mother pelican you're saving, there may be a nest, there may be eggs that can't be saved.
"And that's the tragedy in this: That for every animal we see, what's this oil doing to their young? What's this oil doing to their life cycles?"
The recovery of the pelicans, before the spill, was largely attributed to the ban of the toxic chemical DDT in 1972. The pesticide traveled down the Mississippi River and into the Gulf of Mexico.
Three species were most affected: the brown pelican, the bald eagle and peregrine falcon. A component of DDT accumulated in each of those birds and, as a result, it affected the strength of the eggs they laid.
"The result was that you had thinner egg shells in the nest. During incubation, all the species had the tendency to break the eggs more easily," said Dr. Doug Inkey, a senior scientist for the National Wildlife Federation. "This resulted in a huge population decline in all three species."
The bald eagle, peregrine falcon and brown pelican were all listed on the endangered species list. In the case of the brown pelican, wildlife officials in Louisiana and Florida teamed up to help save the bird over a 13-year period. A total of 1,276 young pelicans were captured in Florida and then released at three sites in southeastern Louisiana, according to the Interior Department.
"When their populations were low, we brought in those brown pelicans from Florida," Jindal said. "Now, when we capture them oiled, clean them up and rehabilitate them, we have to release them back in Florida to get away from this oil."
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has deployed more than 450 people across the Gulf to respond to the nation's worst environmental disaster. As of Monday, the oil threatened 36 National Wildlife Refuges. Nearly 1,200 birds have been saved, including 728 in Louisiana.
Ron Britton of the Fish and Wildlife Service gave a CNN crew a tour of the marsh islands near Grand Isle, Louisiana, a prime breeding ground where oiled pelicans have been spotted.
"What you're trying to do is get in and get those as quick as you can," Britton told CNN's Anderson Cooper. "But the ones you're missing have less chance each night you can't get back. And the ones we don't get back, we're pretty sure are going somewhere and not surviving."
Oil affects pelicans in various ways. The birds' feathers interlock in a way that helps regulate cooling and, when oil soaks their feathers, the birds lose the ability to do that, biologists say.
"Brown pelicans dive into the water for fish. As they break the water, that's one of the ways they contact the oil. Then, once it's on their feathers, the birds preen daily," said Jennifer Coulson, president of the Orleans Audubon Society.
"When they're preening, they ingest all the BP oil. And so, that's another way they get sick and die."
Inkey of the National Wildlife Federation added, "When they get back to their nests, then they rub some of the oil from their chests to their eggs -- and oil on eggs is not a good mix. It's usually deadly for the developing embryo."
Inkey recently visited a brown pelican-nesting habitat along the Louisiana coast. Hundreds of the birds lived together in nests about 6 feet high in mangrove trees along the shore. There were two layers of protective booms surrounding the island that were "close to being worthless."
"We saw more oil inside the booms than we saw outside the booms," he said. "It was surrounded by a bathtub ring of oil."
His first thought: What's going to happen to the pelicans this year?
What's this oil doing to their young? What's this oil doing to their life cycles?
--Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal
"This is the worst-case scenario: It's during breeding season," he said. "We're likely to lose a whole generation of young of many different species. ... It only takes once for a bird to really get messed up in oil for it to have an effect on the nesting success."
He and other biologists said it's far too early to know the full effect of the oil spill on the larger population of brown pelicans -- and whether the bird would ever make it back to the endangered species list. "It would be premature to suggest that," Inkey said.
Biologists said the pelican -- known for its long beak with a hooked tip and its 6-foot wingspan -- is better equipped to survive than smaller birds that ingest oil in greater proportion to their size. In addition, there are five species of sea turtles in the Gulf, and all are endangered or threatened.
"A sea turtle hatchling does not stand a chance," Inkey said.
Regardless, it's a dire situation for all types of wildlife in the region, biologists said.
Yet it was the images of the oil-soaked pelicans that brought home the scope of the disaster -- and its potential devastating consequences. The birds survived DDT, the constant erosion of Louisiana wetlands and Hurricane Katrina.
Inkey already had returned from his visit when the photos first appeared. "I got sick in my stomach," he said. "I had seen oiled pelicans, but not like that. The ones I saw were simply gray. These were just heartbreaking."
He paused. "How do you explain a picture like that to young children and get them to understand that this is something, although unintentional, that man caused?"
CNN's Dugald McConnell and Brian Todd contributed to this report.Brown pelican long a symbol of survival
By Wayne Drash, CNN
June 15, 2010 11:51 a.m.... more
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Click the link for beautiful photos.
London, England (CNN) -- The Alaotra Grebe, a small diving bird native to Madagascar has been officially classified extinct, according to a leading bird conservation organization.
BirdLife International reported that the species, once found on Lake Alaotra, the largest lake in Madagascar, declined rapidly due to carnivorous fish being introduced to the lake and the use of nylon gill nets by local fishermen.
"No hope now remains for this species. It is another example of how human actions can have unforeseen consequences," Dr Leon Bennun, BirdLife International's director of science, policy and information said in a statement.
Invasive alien species are causing extinctions around the globe, Bennun says, and are one of the major threats not just to birds but to other wildlife.
BirdLife International's report is the latest update to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species for birds and highlights additional cases of the negative impact of invasive species on bird life.
The status of Zapata Rail -- a blue/brown bird native to Southwest Cuba -- was upgraded to "critically endangered" due to the introduction of mongoose and exotic catfish to its marshland habitat.
In Asia and Australia, pollution of coastal wetlands is contributing to the falling populations of wading birds like the Great Knot and the Far Eastern Curlew.
The destruction of inter-tidal mudflats in Saemangeum, South Korea, an important migratory stop-over site, has seen numbers of the Great Knot fall by 20 percent, according to BirdLife.
But the news isn't all bad. Conservation projects are having a positive impact on the survival of bird species.
In particular, the Azores Bullfinch has been downgraded from "critically endangered" to "endangered" thanks to conservation work to restore its natural vegetation on its Atlantic island home.
And in Colombia, the numbers of Yellow-eared Parrot have been rising as its nesting sites are preserved and local communities take part in educational programs to learn about conservation.
Martin Fowlie, communications officer at BirdLife International told CNN: "The overall state of the world's birds is getting worse year on year. But these are two very good examples in the list this year that show conservation works.
"We have the skill and the expertise, so these things can be prevented. But we need commitments from governments to provide money to help birds and animals to survive."
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/05/26/bird.extinction.red.list/index.html?hpt=T2Click the link for beautiful photos.
London, England (CNN) -- The Alaotra Grebe, a... more
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Nearly one-third of U.S. bird species "are endangered, threatened or in significant decline," due to climate change, Department of the Interior chief Ken Salazar said Thursday.
Salazar issued a report, "The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change", created by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in collaboration with conservation groups. In it, researchers looked at five factors affecting bird species and weighed them against climate change effects. The factors were migratory vulnerability, breeding ground vulnerability, specialization to particular ecological niches, ability to move home terrains and breeding pattern robustness.
"The results indicate that a majority of birds dependent on oceans, and birds on Hawaiian Islands, are highly vulnerable to climate change," says the report summary. All 67 species of oceanic birds, such as petrels and albatrosses, nest on islands that face flooding from rising sea levels.
For threatened mainland species such as the golden-cheeked warbler, whooping crane, and spectacled eider, "the added vulnerability to climate change may hasten declines or prevent recovery." And common birds such as the American oystercatcher, nighthawk, and northern pintail "are likely to become species of conservation concern as a result of climate change."
"Birds are excellent indicators of the health of our environment, and right now they are telling us an important story about climate change," said Dr. Kenneth Rosenberg, director of Conservation Science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, in a statement on the report. "Many species of conservation concern will face heightened threats, giving us an increased sense of urgency to protect and conserve vital bird habitat."Nearly one-third of U.S. bird species "are endangered, threatened or in... more
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