Washington: Weather killing seabirds

Wash. Weather May Be Killing Seabirds

Staff and agencies
01 February, 2006

Tue Jan 31, 7:52 PM ET

NEAH BAY, Wash. - The mass starvation deaths of murres on Tatoosh
Island off the Olympic Peninsula may be due in part to unusual weather
patterns along the West Coast, scientists say.

In Washington, the state‘s largest colony of glaucous-winged gulls
suffered when the normal fledge count plummeted from 8,000 chicks to
88 last year.

"The whole process broke down," said University of Washington
researcher Julia Parrish, who witnessed bird deaths repeatedly last
summer while observing 6,000 nesting murres on the island about a half
mile off Cape Flattery at the tip of the peninsula. "We don‘t know what
happened."

The oceanographers, atmospheric scientists, marine mammal experts,
seabird biologists and researchers who model ecosystems and ocean
circulation now plan to write a series of scientific papers carefully
documenting their observations.

In early spring, the rain came. And when the birds should have been
making and feeding babies, they were instead found dead.

At the same time, researchers recorded low catches of juvenile salmon
and rockfish, and there were sightings of emaciated gray whales. Those
findings were preceded by the first appearance in Washington waters of
thousands of squid normally not found north of San Francisco. And a
plankton typically found near San Diego bloomed along Northwest
beaches.

"There are all these unconnected reports of biological failures," said John
McGowan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. "It‘s
all the way up and down the coast. ... There‘s a lot of evidence there are
important changes going on in the Pacific coast system."

Based on monthly surveys, researchers estimate the dead birds numbered
in the tens of thousands, mostly Brandt‘s cormorants and common
murres.

The cormorant and murre both rely heavily on diving deep underwater for
small schooling baitfish that also feed whales, seals, salmon and other
animals.

Last summer the birds couldn‘t find any sand lance and hardly any
herring. Catches of the other two fish also were reduced.

Parrish‘s team instead saw the birds preying on the Pacific saury, a rare
sight in 14 years of observations.

"The steak and chicken fell out of the diet," Parrish said. "It‘s like going to
the grocery store and (seeing) there are only a few yucky things in the
store. You adapt by using what‘s there."

Throughout the West Coast researchers recorded similar findings.

At Triangle Island in British Columbia and California‘s Farallon Islands,
scientists saw a third seabird, the Cassin‘s auklet, show signs of
starvation, said Bill Sydeman of the Point Reyes Bird Observatory.

The Farallon auklets started the breeding season late. Only half as many
as normal even tried. Then they abandoned the nests.

"That‘s unprecedented in 35 years of studying Cassin‘s auklets on the
Farallons," Sydeman said.

Along the Washington and Oregon coasts, researchers believe it was the
lack of winds that led to birds‘ deaths.

In the spring, the Aleutian Low, a weather system that brings winter
storms to the area, begins moving north. Winds push the surface of the
Pacific Ocean to the southwest, allowing deeper, colder ocean water to
surge in, bringing with it nutrients from dead plankton, dead fish and fish
excrement.

"Basically, you can think of it as a lot of schmutz that settles to the
bottom," Parrish said.

Without that perennial fertilization, there‘s no plankton, therefore
breaking the food cycle for many fish and birds.

Last year, winds from the north didn‘t really materialize until mid-July,
instead of the normal March or April.

In the last 30 years, the top 300 feet of the Pacific warmed and became
more dense, said Scripps‘ McGowan, whose institution has studied ocean
temperatures since 1919 and started a comprehensive Pacific monitoring
project in 1949.

Off Southern California, zooplankton are down 70 percent, fish larvae 50
percent, and there have been massive die-offs of kelp.

In Puget Sound, the number of seabirds has dropped by
nearly half since the 1970s. Nearly a third of seabird species are legally
protected or candidates for protection.

"All kinds of things are changing, and the biology is responding in funny,
nonlinear, confusing ways," McGowan said. "Not everything has declined,
but many things have."

___

Information from: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, http://www.seattle-pi.com/

It was the weather that killed all those animals in Central America.  Hell, that worked as an excuse in both Panama and Costa Rica, so why not give it play in the United States, too.

When the cows in Iowa start dying overnight with ulcers on their flanks, will they still blame the weather then? 

I can see the news reports, "Anxiety over possible tornadoes is believed to have killed Farmer John's entire cow herd last night.  This morning when he got up to milk the cows, all 1000 of them were lying on their sides in the barn yard................."

I passed this along to some folks with a few more brain cells than I.
They might have some comment after they digest it.