Are Solar Storms Causing Mysterious Sea Animal Beachings?

By Kacey Deamer, Staff Writer | February 3, 2017 05:38pm ET

Why do otherwise healthy sea creatures end up stranded along coastal areas around the world? NASA scientists are searching for the answer.

Whales, dolphins and porpoises — known collectively as cetaceans — partially use magnetic-field sensing to navigate. According to NASA scientists, one explanation for these mysterious strandings could be that the animals' internal compasses become confused during severe solar storms, which affect Earth’s magnetic fields, and so they lose their way. To investigate this marine mystery, NASA has launched a study that will determine whether there is a link between solar storms and animal beachings.

Cetaceans become stranded around the world in groups as small as three or as large as several hundred per event. According to Katie Moore, a collaborator on the NASA study and director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare's Animal Rescue Program, the global phenomenon occurs most often in New Zealand, Australia and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Despite the prevalence of such beaching events, study leader Antti Pulkkinen, a heliophysicist (a person who studies the effects of the sun on the solar system) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said there has been very little quantitative research.

"We estimate that records on the order of hundreds of cetacean mass strandings will be available for study, thus making our analyses statistically significant," Pulkkinen said in a statement. "What we’re going to do is throw cold, hard data at this. It's a long-standing mystery and it’s important that we figure out what’s going on."

Continued  

Mystery of Mass Squid 'Suicides' Possibly Solved

Thousands of jumbo squid have beached themselves on central California shores this week, committing mass "suicide." But despite decades of study into the phenomenon in which the squid essentially fling themselves onto shore, the cause of these mass beachings have been a mystery.

But a few intriguing clues suggest poisonous algae that form so-called red tides may be intoxicating the Humboldt squid and causing the disoriented animals to swim ashore in Monterey Bay, said William Gilly, a marine biologist at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, Calif.

Each of the strandings has corresponded to a red tide, in which algae bloom and release an extremely potent brain toxin, Gilly said. This fall, the red tides have occurred every three weeks, around the same time as the squid beachings, he said. (The squid have been stranding in large numbers for years, with no known cause.)

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/25550-mass-squid-suicide.html

Aquarium officials trying to rehab shark found on Seaside beach

SEASIDE, Ore. -- Shells and logs are common sights on the beaches of the Oregon coast. 

But a shark? That's exactly what was on the shore Wednesday.

A five-and-a-half foot Soupfin shark was on the beach for about an hour before a crew with the Seaside Aquarium could get to it. The shark was found by Seaside police officers who were on beach patrol Wednesday morning.

Seaside Aquarium officials weren't sure at first what kind of shark it was and had to pull out a reference manual to be completely sure because Soupfin sharks are typically found in subtropical waters. 

Keith Chandler, the general manager of Seaside Aquarium, monitored the shark's condition all day long. He said the odds of the shark's survival aren't great because it's in critical condition. 

"It came on the beach this morning the police called me it took me an hour to get to it," he said. "It was laying on the beach for an hour still alive ... We got it back to the aquarium and got it some water and were trying to remove it. It had been without oxygen for a long time so the odds aren't that great."

Officials said the bottom of the shark's belly was red -- a sign the shark was oxygen-deprived.

For a good part of the day, Chandler monitored the shark, making sure it was getting plenty of food as it swam around in a small tank before a crew from the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport drove to Seaside to pick the shark up. Once the shark makes it to Newport, a crew will work with it in order to try to rehabilitate it.


video:  http://www.katu.com/news/local/Aquarium-officials-trying-to-rehab-shark-found-on-Seaside-beach-162987146.html