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Officials determine 'duck plague' is killing ducks at Crescent Lake
Walking along the edge of Crescent Lake this week, Mike Flanagan found something that has become a concern around this close-knit neighborhood: dead ducks.
In recent weeks, more than 25 ducks have died along the shores of the lake just north of downtown. Then on Sunday, fish started floating to the surface. Also dead.
"This is not normal," said Flanagan, president of the Crescent Lake Neighborhood Association. "Obviously our concern is, could we lose all the animals on the lake?"
On Tuesday, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission performed a necropsy on one of the dead ducks. The culprit: duck virus enteritis. Also known as duck plague.
The Crescent Lake outbreak is the second in the past month. In March, 10 dead ducks turned up in a retention pond at Tyrone Boulevard and Park Street. … Residents of Crescent Lake first noticed four dead native mallards about four weeks ago. Since that time, all of the dead ducks have been Muscovies. These non-native species are more susceptible to the disease than mallards or geese.
St. Petersburg Times - www.tampabay.com
20 Apr 2011
L Anton
Location: Saint Peterburg, Florida, USA - Map It
>>>FULL ARTICLE
20 Apr 2011
L Anton
Location: Saint Peterburg, Florida, USA - Map It
>>>FULL ARTICLE
Europe's wildlife under threat from nitrogen
An international study published today warns that nitrogen pollution, resulting from industry and agriculture, is putting wildlife in Europe's at risk. More than 60 per cent of the EU's most important wildlife sites receive aerial nitrogen pollution inputs above sustainable levels.
There is evidence of impacts on semi-natural grasslands, heathlands and forests across Europe. This threat is set to continue unless there is further action on emissions of polluting nitrogen gases.
The study calls for a unified methodology of assessing the impact of aerial nitrogen pollution across Europe to help in efforts to safeguard significant conservation sites.
Dr Kevin Hicks, of the SEI at the University of York, said: "While the nitrogen impacts on plant species are relatively well understood its effects on other wildlife, such as butterflies, and the consequent implications for biodiversity are not so clear."
Mercury on the Rise in Endangered Pacific Seabirds
Using 120 years of feathers from natural history museums in the United States, Harvard University researchers have been able to track increases in the neurotoxin methylmercury in the black-footed albatross (Phoebastria nigripes), an endangered seabird that forages extensively throughout the Pacific.
The study has important implications for both environmental and public health, say the authors. "The Pacific in particular warrants high conservation concern as more threatened seabird species inhabit this region than any other ocean," said lead author Anh-Thu Vo, who did her research while an undergraduate at Harvard and is currently a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. "Given both the high levels of methylmercury that we measured in our most recent samples and regional levels of emissions, mercury bioaccumulation and toxicity may undermine reproductive effort in this species and other long-lived, endangered seabirds."
Science Daily - www.sciencedaily.com
20 Apr 2011
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Cited Journal Article
Anh-Thu E. Vo, et al. Temporal increase in organic mercury in an endangered pelagic seabird assessed by century-old museum specimens. PNAS 2011; published ahead of print April 18, 2011, 10.1073/pnas.1013865108.
20 Apr 2011
>>>FULL ARTICLE
Cited Journal Article
Anh-Thu E. Vo, et al. Temporal increase in organic mercury in an endangered pelagic seabird assessed by century-old museum specimens. PNAS 2011; published ahead of print April 18, 2011, 10.1073/pnas.1013865108.
Another fish kill has puzzled scientists
FIn Ventura County, a mass of sardines that crowded into the harbor has died. The harbormaster found the dead fish on Monday after about 1,000 sardines turned up near the shopping center at Ventura Harbor's south end.
Live sardines had crowded the area for a week and harbor officials lowered aerators into the water — just like aquarium keepers might pump in air — with the aim of saving some sardines.
Observers say the fish looked as if they ran out of oxygen. Volunteers skimmed up 6 tons of fish in Ventura so far, and if this story sounds familiar, it's because early last month about 175 tons of sardines turned up dead in King Harbor in Redondo Beach.
Southern California Public Radio - www.scpr.org
19 Apr 2011
Location: Ventura Harbor, California, USA - Map It
M Peterson
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Other domoic acid poisoning news:
Domoic acid poisoning could be the culprit in Dolphin's deaths
19 Apr 2011
Location: Ventura Harbor, California, USA - Map It
M Peterson
>>>FULL ARTICLE
Other domoic acid poisoning news:
Domoic acid poisoning could be the culprit in Dolphin's deaths
OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
- Series Highlights 50 Climate Impacts on Fish and Wildlife
- Migrating Birds Escaped Worst of Gulf Oil Spill
- WHO group finalizes landmark pandemic virus-sharing agreement
