Alaskan bird die off update: “The number is totally off the charts!” Nearly 10,000 dead murres on a 1-mile stretch of beach along with hundreds of dead star fish…Lack of food blamed
TheBigWobble.org
Friday, 8 January 2016
Anyone who has walked Homer’s beaches the past few weeks has seen a horrid event.
Every few yards along the tidal wrack line, the white chests of dead birds stand out among kelp and driftwood.
Some of the seabirds have been scavenged, a new food source that’s caused an influx of bald eagles not seen on the Homer Spit since the death in 2009 of Jean Keene, Homer’s Eagle Lady who used to feed eagles.
Something is killing Alaska’s common murres.
In the summer of 2015, the murres also suffered a complete colony collapse and failed to breed. Almost all the dead birds are murres, seabirds that in the summer swim in huge rafts near Gull Island or offshore.
On a still summer evening, huge flocks can be seen flying just feet above the ocean surface.
With big, duck-like feet, black backs and white breasts, they look like penguins.
On land they’re helpless, but on sea they can swim and dive deep.
Bird experts advise beach walkers to leave carcasses alone.
Many of the murres appear emaciated and have starved to death, but scientists studying the die off don’t yet know what’s causing the murres to starve.
Not only are murres starving, they’re not breeding.
Surveys of breeding colonies in Kachemak Bay and on the Barren Islands last summer showed no murres set up nests.
Murres usually have a breeding success rate of 50 to 60 percent.
“We had complete reproductive failure, which is really rare for murres,” said Heather Renner, a bird biologist with the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.
The Rest…HERE
