Florida: $20,000 reward offered after two dolphins found stabbed or shot dead

Officials say dolphins had what looked like bullet wounds

Dead mammals found in waters off Naples and Pensacola

Associated Press in St Petersburg

Tue 11 Feb 2020 22.32 GMTLast modified on Tue 11 Feb 2020 22.42 GMT

US federal authorities have offered a reward of up to $20,000 after two dolphins were found with gruesome and life-ending injuries along Florida’s Gulf coast in recent weeks.

According to the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one dolphin was discovered dead in waters off Naples in south-west Florida late last week. Officials said the animal had received bullet, or stab wounds – or possibly both.

Also last week, the Emerald Coast wildlife refuge found a dolphin with a bullet in its left side along Pensacola Beach in the Florida Panhandle.

Experts believe the two deaths might have stemmed from humans feeding the animals. When dolphins learn to associate people and boats with food, they can expose themselves to dangerous situations.

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Half of tigers rescued from Thai temple have died, officials say

Inbreeding blamed as only 61 of 147 big cats survive after removal from tourist attraction

Agence France-Presse

Mon 16 Sep 2019 11.05 BST

More than half of the 147 tigers confiscated from a Thai temple have died, park officials have said, blaming genetic problems linked to inbreeding at the once money-spinning tourist attraction.

For years, the Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua temple in the western province of Kanchanaburi attracted hordes of tourists who could be photographed – for a fee – next to scores of tigers.

But in 2016 park officials began a lengthy operation to remove the big cats amid allegations of mismanagement and claims the creatures were being exploited.

Dozens of dead cubs were found in freezers, sparking claims the carcasses were being sold by a temple rumoured to have raked in hundreds of thousands of pounds a year from visitors.

Tiger parts can fetch enormous sums in China and Vietnam, where some people falsely believe them to have medicinal properties.

The surviving adults were taken to two breeding stations in nearby Ratchaburi province but only 61 of the 147 have survived so far, parks officials said.

“It could be linked to inbreeding,” said Pattarapol Maneeon of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation. “They had genetic problems which posed risks to body and immune system.”

Many suffered from tongue paralysis, breathing problems and lack of appetite that led to fatal seizures.

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Stranded whales: Numbers on the rise around UK shores

By Helen BriggsBBC News

6 September 2019

The number of whales and dolphins washing up around the UK coastline has risen, according to new figures.

In 2017 alone, 1,000 animals were stranded - more than in any year since records began.

A total of 4,896 whales, dolphins and porpoises died on beaches between 2011 and 2017 - up 15% on the previous seven years.

Scientists found a number of causes for the deaths, including infectious diseases, fishing and plastic.

It's difficult to say conclusively what's driven the rise, but it's associated with multiple causes, including rises in some dolphin and whale populations, they say.

"Strandings aren't actually in and of themselves bad news," Rob Deaville of ZSL (Zoological Society of London), who led the report, told BBC News.

"There's a misconception that we're trying to stop strandings - we're not, we're trying to learn more about those that are due to human activities and then try and mitigate those where we can."

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Manatee deaths by watercraft rising at record pace in Florida

JULY 9, 2019

by Katie Kustura

Wildlife experts have blamed toxic red tide algae and a cold snap for the deadly 2018 experienced by manatees, but so far this year, boats are the primary cause.

From the beginning of this year through June 21, 81 manatees have been killed by watercraft in Florida's waters, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. During the same time frame in 2018, watercraft caused the deaths of 59 manatees.

At that rate, the number of manatee deaths caused by watercraft could hit an all-time high this year, officials say.

The reason for the increase is likely a combination of factors, said Cora Berchem, research and multimedia specialist for the Save the Manatee Club, headquartered in Maitland.

Berchem said she believes one of the factors is manatees being downlisted from endangered to threatened, which may cause people to think it's safe to exhibit less caution while operating watercraft.

"That's not the case," Berchem said by phone Monday. "If we have more manatees, we also have more to protect."

A recovering economy also puts more people in the position to be able to go boating at their leisure, Berchem said.

This year a total of 300 manatees have been reported dead in Florida from Jan. 1 through June 21, according to the FWC.

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From Krill to Whales, Marine Life Is Washing Up Dead in the Bering Strait

By Davis Hovey | July 5, 2019 | 0 

THROUGHOUT THE MONTH OF JUNE, dead marine life was being reported on a weekly basis in the Bering Strait region.

First it was a dead walrus in St. Michael, then a large group of blue mussels near Port Clarence, and more recently, it was several types of seabirds and fish near Shishmaref.

“People in Shishmaref reported some birds washing up: sounds like mostly thick-billed murres, and people in Savoonga also had a murre die-off earlier in May.”

That’s Kathy Kuletz, the seabird coordinator for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. She’s been working with local observers like Andrew Kakoona and Ken Stenek as well as other scientists. During the last three weeks of June, Stenek reported over 30 dead birds on a stretch of Shishmaref’s east beach, under a mile and a half long.

Gay Sheffield, with Alaska Sea Grant, confirmed she returned from her travels in the Bering Strait region this week to take samples and report on some of those die-offs. However, Sheffield said she could not provide more details until her reports are finished.

While Sheffield is tending to that, Kuletz’s role involves coordinating shipments of samples and carcasses of the dead seabirds, so they can be sent to the National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin. 

“We will be getting some carcasses from Shishmaref of sick or dying birds that had washed up sick and then died. In that case, there were also reports of mounds of krill that was dead and mixing with some fish. So that’s a concern; that indicates something else is going on in the system.”

According to Kuletz, the numbers reported are relatively small: there have not been any big die-offs so far this season. And she says there are usually some dead birds found on the coast every year. 

“But in concentrated numbers, where you get 20, 30, 50 or more birds at a time, that’s unusual. And it’s also very unusual up in the far north, in the Bering Strait Region.”

Something else unusual happening in the region that some scientists say could be related, is ocean waters getting drastically warmer. Climatologist Rick Thoman, with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy, says by the end of June, sea surface temperatures in the Norton Sound were anywhere from six to 12 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.

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Fish and Wildlife gets $30,000 to study sick turtles in St. Johns River- via Herp Digest

Since March 2018, an unprecedented 300 sick or dead turtles have been reported to FWC

Wednesday, May 1, 2019 ClayTodayOnline

TALLAHASSEE – The nonprofit Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida announced a $30,000 grant to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for freshwater turtle disease research.

The project will investigate the deaths of freshwater turtles in the St. Johns River watershed. Since March 2018, an unprecedented 300 sick or dead turtles have been reported to FWC. Prior to this event, only 75 undiagnosed cases of dead freshwater turtles had been reported since 2006. With a novel virus being the suspected culprit, the grant will support the development of diagnostic tools to further understand the virus and its reach in Florida.

Clay County is included in the St. Johns River watershed.

Foundation President and CEO Andrew Walker said, “The recent deaths of freshwater turtles in the St. Johns River are alarming. We are committed to finding the cause of the outbreak, as these turtles are an important member of the St. Johns River ecosystem.”

Grant funding came from the “Conserve Wildlife” specialty license plate fund managed by Foundation. The Foundation has raised and given away more than $32 million to support conservation, fishing, hunting and outdoor education for children, adolescents and adults. The Foundation recently completed a contest with Ringling College of Art & Design to redesign the plate in the hopes of increasing sales, and thus increased grant funding.

More dolphins die in Aegean Sea; group suspects navy drills

APRIL 8, 2019

by Nicholas Paphitis

The Aegean Sea has seen a "very unusual" spike in dolphin deaths over the past few weeks, a Greek marine conservation group said Monday, adding that the rise could be linked to massive Turkish naval exercises in the area.

Fifteen dead dolphins have washed up on the eastern island of Samos and other parts of Greece's Aegean coastline since late February, according to the Archipelagos Institute.

Its head of research, Anastassia Miliou, told The Associated Press that 15 is a worryingly high number compared to "one or two" in the same period last year.

The group said while it's still unclear what caused the deaths, the spike follows the Feb. 27-March 8 Turkish "Blue Homeland" exercises—the country's largest ever—that made constant use of sonar and practiced with live ammunition.

The deafening noise of sonar, used by warships to detect enemy submarines, can injure dolphins and whales, driving them to surface too fast or beach themselves—with sometimes fatal consequences—to escape the din.

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Record number of Mexican gray wolves found dead in 2018

December 13, 2018 by Susan Montoya Bryan

In this undated file photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a Mexican gray wolf leaves cover at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, Socorro County, N.M. Wildlife managers have confirmed that a record number of Mexican …more

Wildlife managers have confirmed a record number of Mexican gray wolves have been reported dead this year, fueling concerns about the decades-long effort to return the endangered predator to the southwestern U.S.

Five wolves were found dead in New Mexico in November, bringing the total for the year to 17. That marks the most wolves killed in any single year since the reintroduction effort began in 1998, and it's one of the deadliest months in the program's history.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating but hasn't said how the animals died.

The dead wolves include a female pup, two male wolves and the leaders of two packs—one that roams the mountainous area along the Arizona-New Mexico border and another that lives in the north-central portion of the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico.

"The very small population of Mexican gray wolves in the wild cannot sustain this level of mortality for long," said Bryan Bird, the Southwest program director for Defenders of Wildlife. "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must immediately get a handle on the losses and resume releases of captive-bred wolf families."

Members of the wolf reintroduction field team pointed to the larger population of wolves in the wild in 2018, saying the percentage of mortalities this year is actually less than in some past years when there were fewer wolves roaming parts of Arizona and New Mexico.

The lower percentage for 2018 indicates more of the wild population is surviving, which they say is a good sign.

All this comes as ranchers continue to report conflicts. In November, federal authorities documented six instances in which wolves killed cattle, and there were two nuisance reports.

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Queensland flying fox species decimated by record heatwave

‘As far as we know, [the spectacled flying fox] has never suffered heat deaths before,’ ecologist says

Lisa Cox

Thu 29 Nov 2018 17.00 GMTLast modified on Thu 29 Nov 2018 17.02 GMT

Thousands of threatened flying foxes have dropped dead due to heat stress brought on by extreme temperatures in far north Queensland this week.

Conservationists and wildlife volunteers estimate more than 4,000 have perished this week during the record heatwave, which has seen temperatures in Cairns reach all-time highs of 42.6C.

The species of flying fox affected is the spectacled flying fox, an endemic Queensland species found in north Queensland.

It’s currently listed as vulnerable under national environment laws but conservationists have been pushing to have the species up-listed to endangered because of declines in the population.

Volunteer carers that have been counting dead animals and taking orphaned young into care say it is the first time the species has suffered mass deaths because of extreme heat.

 “It’s never had a heat stress event before because it’s in the tropics,” said Maree Treadwell Kerr, a wildlife carer and president of the Bats and Tree Society of Cairns.

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Toxic 'red tide' blamed for rise of manatee deaths in Florida

Experts blame a cold snap at the beginning of the year and algae bloom in the Gulf of Mexico for the fatalities

Associated Press

Tue 21 Aug 2018 00.01 BSTLast modified on Tue 21 Aug 2018 15.19 BST

Manatees are dying in alarming numbers in Florida this year – the toll significantly increased by the “red tide” toxic algae bloom blighting large areas of the coast and threatening wildlife and tourism.

More of the large, slow-moving herbivores, also known as sea cows, have died so far in 2018 than all of last year, according to state wildlife statistics reported on Monday.

A total of 540 manatees had died by 12 August this year, compared with 538 in 2017. Experts blame a cold snap at the beginning of the year and the tide of algae in the Gulf of Mexico for the fatalities.

“We expect the red tide related manatee death toll to rise,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a Washington-based non-profit. “We suspect there are a number of carcasses that have not been reported yet.”

Statistics from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission say that red tide is to blame for at least 97 manatee deaths. 

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The toxic algae bloom has overrun Florida’s southern Gulf Coast this summer, devastating sea life and driving people from the water. Over the weekend, television newscasts warned viewers before they showed graphic video of dead manatees in the water.

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Why 8 Endangered Rhinos Died in Mission to Save Them

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | July 16, 2018 07:34pm ET

A mission meant to save critically endangered rhinoceroses by transferring them to a wildlife sanctuary in Kenya has ended in tragedy, with the deaths of eight of the odd-toed ungulates, according to Kenya's Ministry of Tourism.

But the culprit wasn't poaching. Rather, it was likely salty water, the ministry said.

Preliminary investigations showed that once the black rhinos (Diceros bicornis) arrived at the newly created sanctuary in Tsavo East National Park, they gulped down water with a high salt content. The more salty water the rhinos drank, the thirstier they became, leading to a vicious cycle, the ministry reported on July 13. [Up and Away! Photos of Rhinos in Flight]

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Ukraine says military dolphins captured by Russia went on hunger strike

Russia captured the dolphins in 2014 and says the trained mammals refused interact with coaches or eat

Sam Wolfson

Thu 17 May 2018 19.10 BSTFirst published on Thu 17 May 2018 06.00 BST

Ukraine is home to some of the more adventurous military blue-sky thinking, mostly hangovers from the Soviet era. As well as a 160-metre high, 500-metre long radar that was supposed to be able to warn of nuclear attack, it also has a secret programme that trains sea mammals to carry out military tasks. Ukraine has a dolphin army at the Crimean military dolphin centre, trained and ready for deployment.

Or at least it did, but after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, the dolphins were captured. Ukraine demanded their return, but Russian forces refused. Some believed the Russians were planning to retrain the dolphins as Russian soldiers, with a source telling Russian agency RIA Novosti that engineers were “developing new aquarium technologies for new programmes to more efficiently use dolphins underwater”.

Four years later and it seems little has come of these supposed Russian plans and most of the dolphins have died. But this week Boris Babin, the Ukrainian government’s representative in Crimea, claimed that they did so defending their country. He said that the dolphins died “patriotically”, refusing to follow orders or eat food provided by the “Russian invaders” and that the hunger strike led to their eventual death.

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3 Dead, Liverless Sharks Wash Ashore in Weird Whodunit

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | May 11, 2017 06:58am ET 

In a strange case of extremely picky eating, orcas off the coast of South Africa are killing great white sharks, but the killer whales are chowing down only on the sharks' livers and, in some cases, their hearts, researchers say.

In a four-day period starting May 3, researchers found the bodies of three great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) that had washed ashore along South Africa's Western Cape province. Saddened and mystified by the deaths, the researchers performed necropsies (animal autopsies) on all three.

No one saw the sharks' last moments, but their injuries indicate that orcas, also known as killer whales (Orcinus orca), were the culprits, the researchers said. 

"These observations are unprecedented," Alison Towner, a white-shark biologist for the Dyer Island Conservation Trust in South Africa, wrote on the Marine Dynamics blog, a site hosted by a shark cage diving company. "We don't really know how long the sharks will stay away from the area as a result of predation pressure."

Although orcas aren't known to regularly hunt great white sharks, "it's not unprecedented," said Andrew Nosal, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Saint Katherine College in San Marcos, California, and a visiting assistant researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. (Nosal was not involved in the recent shark analyses.)

Scientists know that both orcas and great whites live off the western coast of South Africa, where the Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet. Although Nosal wasn't aware of orca-on-shark attacks in that area, he had heard of instances in which orcas have hunted the sharks in other locations, such as off the coast of southern Australia and near the Farallon Islands, a wildlife refuge off the coast of San Francisco, he said.

In addition, orcas are known to hunt and eat the livers of the broadnose sevengill shark (Notorynchus cepedianus) off the coast of California, said Chris Lowe, director of The Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach, who wasn't involved with the South African analyses.

Not much is known about orca predation on great white sharks, Nosal said. But any marine biologist can tell you that other marine mammals prey on the livers and internal organs of smaller sharks, he said.

For instance, sea lions routinely hunt leopard sharks off the coast of California. In grisly detail, Nosal described how sea lions grab onto leopard sharks (Triakis semifasciata), and then twist and turn the shark until they can bite just under its gills.

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Royal Navy bomb explosions caused mass whale deaths, report concludes

Noise from underwater bombs caused 19 pilot whales to beach and die off the coast of Scotland in 2011, say government scientists

Rob Edwards

Wednesday 24 June 2015 14.09 BSTLast modified on Wednesday 24 June 201514.12 BST

Four large bombs exploded underwater by the Royal Navy were to blame for a mass stranding which killed 19 pilot whales on the north coast of Scotland in 2011, government scientists have concluded.

A long-delayed report released on Wednesday by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs says that the noise from the explosions could have damaged the hearing and navigational abilities of the whales, causing them to beach and die.

On 22 July 2011, 70 long-finned pilot whales swam into the Kyle of Durness, a shallow tidal inlet east of Cape Wrath, Europe’s largest live bombing range. Despite attempts to herd them back out to sea, 39 were left stranded by the tide.

Concerted efforts by expert teams and local people managed to refloat 20, but 19 ended up dead. It was one of the largest mass strandings in recent years, and it prompted a government-funded investigation by 12 scientists from laboratories across the UK.

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Why are so many whales dying on California's shores?

A recent spate of whales washed up on the state’s beaches may be coincidence but ship strikes, fishing lines, sonar and climate change are all taking a toll

Joseph Mayton

Saturday 16 May 2015 13.00 BSTLast modified on Saturday 16 May 201517.18 BST

Last week, scores of local residents made their way to Sharp State Park in Pacifica, California, a 20-minute drive south of San Francisco, to view the body of a humpback whale that came ashore on 4 May.

When the 32-foot female humpback whale’s body came ashore, after days being tossed by waves, it was only the latest in a string of strandings along northern California’s Pacific coast.

Moe Flannery, a stranded marine mammal responder and manager of the Department of Ornithology and Mammalogy at the California Academy of Sciences, is quick to dispel a desire to look for conspiracy theories over the whales’ deaths.

“This is not a beaching,” she begins, “it is a stranding,” explaining that a stranding occurs when the animal washes ashore and does not deliberately go on to the beach. This usually happens after the animal is injured.

Flannery and the academy believe that it is “likely” the most recent whale was hit by a ship at sea and washed ashore after dying. Her team, which conducted the necropsy, says there were “signs of trauma consistent with blunt force”.

While Flannery does not deliver an exact cause of death – “because we were not there to witness the animal die” – she believes this death, and the others in recent weeks along the California coastline, are accidents and the timing is coincidental.

“We cannot make assumptions or theories of why there have been this number of incidents in recent weeks because we did not physically witness the trauma,” she argues.

On 14 April, also in Pacifica, a 48ft sperm whale washed ashore. Researchers are unsure of exactly what occurred in the ocean but report the whale was emaciated and had slight hemorrhaging, which could have been the result of a ship collision. Shortly after that incident, an orca came ashore north of San Francisco in Fort Bragg. According to researchers there, the orca appears to have been injured as a result of fishing nets and was also showing signs of hunger.

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Sharks and exotic fish die after Texas aquarium tank is treated for parasite with chemicals

LAMIAT SABIN

Thursday 16 April 2015

Scores of fish, including three sharks, have died at an aquarium after their water was treated with a chemical to get rid of a parasite – leaving only two left.

Workers were shocked to arrive at the Texas State Aquarium yesterday morning to find that exotic fish in the Islands of Steel tank such as nurse sharks, lionfish, amberjacks and sand tiger sharks had died, or were dying – according to Kiii TV News.

It was after a chemical was used to kill a disease-carrying parasite, as reported by local channel Kris TV.

The water of the largest indoor tank at the venue, in Corpus Christi, was treated on Tuesday evening. The aquarium claims that the chemicals were used in smaller tanks without problems.

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