Latest news with #stranding
ABC News
2 days ago
- Health
- ABC News
As South Australia deals with its algal bloom, California is dealing with another
A dead sea lion is discovered on one end of the coast, and not far away an entire pod of long-beaked common dolphins lay stranded. It is becoming a familiar scene for those living along the coast of Southern California. And much like in South Australia, where thousands of dead sea creatures have washed ashore since March, a harmful algal bloom is to blame. Warning: This story contains content that some readers may find distressing. In California, this is the fourth consecutive year of death and destruction along the coastline. There have been scores of marine mammals and sea birds injured and killed, with US rescuers dealing with "by far historically the largest mass stranding event" relating to algal blooms. In South Australia, the Karenia mikimotoi bloom, kills fish and other sea creatures by impacting their gills, causing them to drown. In the US, authorities have been dealing with different types of algae, including one that produces domoic acid which can cause mammals like sea lions to experience seizures, behave aggressively or die. The Pacific Marine Mammal Center (PMMC) said the harmful algal bloom on the Southern California coast had significantly impacted sea lion and common dolphin populations and had killed two humpback whales and a minke whale. "In 2025, we've experienced the worst domoic acid algae bloom that we've ever experienced in Southern California history," Alissa Deming, PMMC vice president of Conservation, Medicine and Science told ABC News. Dr Deming said the PMMC hospital had taken in hundreds of sick mammals, which had been "physically demanding and very emotionally taxing" on staff and volunteers trying to help while protecting the public from aggressive animals. "A number of the sea lions were also pregnant, and that resulted in reproductive losses of over 85 fetuses born and lost in our hospital as a result of this bloom," she said. The veterinarian said there were likely similar drivers for its bloom to the one happening in South Australia including increasing marine temperatures and more nutrients from cold water upwelling. "By combining the warm sea surface temperatures with increased nutrients, that has resulted in us having a bloom event every year since 2022, with them seemingly becoming larger, longer lasting and covering a lot larger geographic region," Dr Deming said. Investigations are underway if the destructive Los Angeles wildfires in January and the associated run-off have contributed to the bloom. The US National Office for Harmful Algal Blooms said a conservative estimated cost of harmful algal blooms for the the US was about $50 million, but experts say expenses are hard to quantify. A 2024 study estimated losses to tourism-related businesses during the 2018 Florida red tide bloom at $US2.7 billion. Dr Deming said the US government agencies continued to have monitoring and management practices in place to support the commercial seafood industry. "Being able to have good federal and state agencies that can do surveillance to test to ensure seafood is safe for the public, as well as trying to come up with preventative measures or best management practices to prevent blooms, … are really high priority items," she said. "We're happy we have some of those systems in place, but there's absolutely room for improvement I think all around the world to help prevent the conditions that support these really long lasting and devastating blooms." Other algal blooms have also wreaked havoc in other parts of the world. An algae surge choked to death an estimated 40,000 tonnes of salmon in Chile in 2016 while hundreds of elephant deaths in Botswana in 2020 were linked to cyanobacteria, often called blue-green algae in Australia. The scale of each harmful algal bloom event seems to be increasing, professor Gretta Pecl from the University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies told the ABC. "If there isn't something done to mitigate, to reduce climate emissions, warming will continue and these kinds of events will be more and more likely," she said. US research biologist at NOAA Fisheries Kathi Lefebvre, who has been studying harmful algal blooms for 25 years, said the blooms were getting worse and reaching areas "where we used to not have problems". "It is turning out to be a major impact of climate change." Authorities in South Australia have linked South Australia's algal bloom to climate change, and state and federal governments have pledged a collective $28 million for a suite of measures to tackle the algal bloom, including more funding for testing. Dr Lefebvre said authorities needed to take action now to mitigate the effects of future blooms. "What's going to happen if these blooms are going to be continuing is that there's going to need to be ways to test for toxins … to protect human health," Dr Lefebvre said. "The more information we have, the better decisions we can make.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Three whales found dead in Orkney stranding
Three bottlenose whales have been found dead on Papa Westray, one of Orkney's northernmost islands. A specialist team from the University of Glasgow has started to carry out post-mortem examinations on the carcasses. Investigations into the cause of death are ongoing. It comes after the biggest mass stranding in Scotland for almost 30 years took place in Orkney last summer. The Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS), a team at the University of Glasgow, arrived in Orkney after the carcasses were discovered by a local dog walker on Monday morning. Warning: this story contains images and descriptions some readers may find distressing SMASS member Marielle ten Doeschate said: "With any post-mortem we're kind of on the clock, because samples start to degrade, and the more decomposed an animal is the less informative it is for auxiliary tests. "But with deep-diving species we're extra on the ball with that because heat generation means decomposition goes quicker, so we were actually really lucky to get here so quickly." SMASS examined one of the three whales on Tuesday before a high tide put a stop to initial investigations. Despite a noticeable bloating after lying out in the sun, the team found that the whales had all been healthy - though they had not been feeding recently. SMASS will continue its post-mortem examinations at Vestness in Papa Westray on Wednesday to try to determine a cause of death. Bottlenose whales are deep-diving mammals endemic to the North Atlantic. They are usually found at 800ft (244m) below sea level where there are no predators, feeding on squid. SMASS director Dr Andrew Brownlow, a veterinary pathologist, told BBC Scotland News: "We're getting many more species that we'd normally see further south in warmer waters that seem to be coming up here more frequently in bigger numbers." He said the reason for the shift from their natural habitat remain unconfirmed, but that it ultimately seemed to be as a result of climate change. 'We can learn so much' However, for Dr Brownlow and his team, the discovery of the whales was not entirely negative. He added: "As sad as it is that they strand like this, we can learn so much about them, we can learn about the individual but also learn about the species - a species of which we know very little." The carcasses were discovered by local firefighter Daniel Elves, who was walking his dogs when the animals "loomed out of the mist". The islanders had just celebrated their annual Papay Fun Weekend, which sees a large increase in its normal population of approximately 70 people for an annual get-together. "I actually sat down and shed a tear at the colour of the water," Mr Elves said. "You couldn't have made it any redder." SMASS attended a similar scene last year when an entire pod of whales was found washed ashore on Tresness Beach, on the island of Sanday, in the largest mass stranding since 1995. "July is a particularly bad month for strandings," said Dr Brownlow. "In 2023, there was a stranding of 55 pilot whales on the Isle of Lewis. "Almost exactly a year later, 77 of them came in to Sanday." Whole pod of 77 whales die in 'biggest mass stranding in decades' Whales were healthy before Orkney stranding - expert Experts probe one of UK's worst whale strandings
BBC News
6 days ago
- Science
- BBC News
Three bottlenose whales found dead in Orkney stranding
Three bottlenose whales have been found dead on Papa Westray, one of Orkney's northernmost islands.A specialist team from the University of Glasgow has started to carry out post-mortem examinations on the carcasses. Investigations into the cause of death are ongoing. It comes after the biggest mass stranding in Scotland for almost 30 years took place in Orkney last summer. The Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS), a team at the University of Glasgow, arrived in Orkney after the carcasses were discovered by a local dog walker on Monday morning. Warning: this story contains images and descriptions some readers may find distressing SMASS member Marielle ten Doeschate said: "With any post-mortem we're kind of on the clock, because samples start to degrade, and the more decomposed an animal is the less informative it is for auxiliary tests. "But with deep-diving species we're extra on the ball with that because heat generation means decomposition goes quicker, so we were actually really lucky to get here so quickly."SMASS examined one of the three whales on Tuesday before a high tide put a stop to initial investigations. Despite a noticeable bloating after lying out in the sun, the team found that the whales had all been healthy - though they had not been feeding recently. SMASS will continue its post-mortem examinations at Vestness in Papa Westray on Wednesday to try to determine a cause of whales are deep-diving mammals endemic to the North are usually found at 800ft (244m) below sea level where there are no predators, feeding on director Dr Andrew Brownlow, a veterinary pathologist, told BBC Scotland News: "We're getting many more species that we'd normally see further south in warmer waters that seem to be coming up here more frequently in bigger numbers."He said the reason for the shift from their natural habitat remain unconfirmed, but that it ultimately seemed to be as a result of climate change. 'We can learn so much' However, for Dr Brownlow and his team, the discovery of the whales was not entirely added: "As sad as it is that they strand like this, we can learn so much about them, we can learn about the individual but also learn about the species - a species of which we know very little."The carcasses were discovered by local firefighter Daniel Elves, who was walking his dogs when the animals "loomed out of the mist". The islanders had just celebrated their annual Papay Fun Weekend, which sees a large increase in its normal population of approximately 70 people for an annual get-together. "I actually sat down and shed a tear at the colour of the water," Mr Elves said."You couldn't have made it any redder."SMASS attended a similar scene last year when an entire pod of whales was found washed ashore on Tresness Beach, on the island of Sanday, in the largest mass stranding since 1995."July is a particularly bad month for strandings," said Dr Brownlow."In 2023, there was a stranding of 55 pilot whales on the Isle of Lewis. "Almost exactly a year later, 77 of them came in to Sanday."
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Dead beaver found on Cornish beach
A dead beaver has been found on a Cornish beach. The Polzeath Beach Ranger Service said it was alerted to the animal at about 08:00 BST on Sunday by a member of the public. Beach ranger Andy Stewart said the beaver was about 2.5ft (76cm) long and had no visible injuries. He added the animal had been collected by Cornwall Wildlife Trust for a post-mortem examination. More news stories for Cornwall Listen to the latest news for Cornwall Mr Stewart said: "We wouldn't normally section a part of the beach off unless it was particularly big or disruptive to whatever was going on. "Even though people look at strandings with concern, it's also really educational, the cycle of life and marine habitats. "So we would normally leave a stranding area open but with this one, because it was so rare, I took a big bag down, put it in the bag and brought it up to the office as quickly as I could." Mr Stewart added the condition of the beaver made it "absolutely perfect for a post-mortem". "Firstly we called Cornwall Wildlife Trust because the Marine Strandings Network would usually come out for marine wildlife - that would be seal, dolphins, porpoises, whales," he said. "The beaver doesn't really fall into their remit. However, they are very interested in this. "My assumption is that it was floating in the water when rigor mortis set in and that's why its head is high and it looks so alive and alert, but I'm no expert." Polzeath Beach Rangers reminded the public and their pets to stay away from any marine strandings, alive or dead. "Sometimes it's better to leave things alone and either let nature take its course or let the experts get involved," it added. Follow BBC Cornwall on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@ More on this story 'Nature is on its knees and beavers can help' Iberian orca seen for first time in Cornish waters Related internet links Cornwall Wildlife Trust Polzeath Beach Ranger Service
ABC News
26-05-2025
- Science
- ABC News
WA melon-headed whale stranding investigation findings 'inconclusive'
Marine researchers have been unable to determine why 10 whales stranded themselves on Western Australia's far north earlier this year. The melon-headed whales were found by residents at Crab Creek, east of Broome and about 2,000 kilometres north of Perth, in January. Melon-headed whales are small, toothed whales belonging to the oceanic dolphin family. The Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) collected scientific information from the dead mammals to investigate the incident. But it has since confirmed the cause of the stranding would remain unknown. Marine scientist Holly Raudino said the species had only stranded twice previously in WA, so the incident was unusual and concerning. She said research team members had done everything they could with the samples available. "We hadn't anticipated how quickly the head and the soft tissues would decompose," she said. "By the time we received the head, it appears that decomposition had already set in. "We're always trying to improve on our efforts as much as we can and as funding permits." Findings initially suggested the stranding was caused by intense noise, due to severe damage to the mammals' ears. But because of significant decomposition, results regarding the ears were comprised and deemed inconclusive. "Elsewhere in the world when this species is stranded, it's been suspected to be in relation to exposure to an intense noise source," Ms Raudino said. The species is primarily found in deep water worldwide. The whales travel in pods ranging from 100 to more than 1,000 members. While the ultimate cause of the stranding is undetermined, Ms Raudino said the team's findings would help inform broader global understanding and research into strandings generally. Envrions Kimberley executive director Martin Pritchard said the stranding had shocked residents. He said it was disappointing the cause would not be fully understood. "We have a world-class marine environment here and there's a responsibility on the government to make sure we know what's going on and to manage it properly," he said. "We're a wealthy country; surely we've got the resources to monitor our marine life so we can understand what's been going on in our oceans." Mr Pritchard said at the time of the incident there were reports of "very large noises" in the area cause by "pile drivers". "We were concerned that could have had a direct impact on the whales," he said. "Now we'll never know."
