recluse ~'s List: Mysterious Animals Deaths

• A virus in the Great Lakes region of the U.S. threatens 19 species of fish,
• and may harm New York state's $2 billion-a-year sports-fishing economy.
• An infection called viral hemorrhagic septicemia, which causes anemia and severe bleeding, has led to the death of hundreds of thousands of fish in the state this year,
• The infection may lead to less fishing. The pastime contributed an estimated $2 billion to the state's economy in 2003, the latest year for which a figure is available, according to the American Sportfishing Association, based in Alexandria, Virginia.

  • Note financial figures.
• The sport-fishing economy in 2005 totaled an estimated $2.4 billion in Wisconsin, $2.8 billion in Minnesota, $1.6 billion in Indiana, $2 billion in Ohio and $1.6 billion in Pennsylvania, according to the association.
• Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York all allow commercial fishing as well. The sales from commercial fishing in the Great Lakes totaled $13.5 million in 2005
• It is unclear how freshwater fish became infected, he said. Nor is it clear how many animals will ultimately be infected.

• Tens of thousands of drum were found dead on the shores of Lake Erie in the spring of 2006, Bowser said.

   

  ``The worst-case scenario is the 2006 Erie incident,'' he said. ``So many fish died that the bodies piled up on the shore, 10 feet wide and four feet high.''
• they're ultimately for the protection of the economy
• The organization has classified VHS as a disease with profound economic consequences, so it must be reported to the international community immediately when discovered.

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• Seabirds rarely seen on the Oregon coast have been washing up dead in unusually high numbers over the past month

• The birds are starving, with empty stomachs and breast muscles shrinking as their ailing bodies burn muscle tissue to survive, say people who have found and examined the birds.

   

  "They also feel lighter than they should," said Mike Patterson, an independent researcher in Astoria who keeps track of the trends.
• What stands out about the die-off that emerged in early March and picked up again a few weeks later is the type of birds involved. They include horned puffins, parakeet auklets, mottled petrels and thick-billed murres, all species that usually stay far offshore of Oregon and rarely appear here, experts say.
• This is the third year that unusual numbers and types of birds have turned up dead

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• Numbers of hen and cow have died in Baria Kali Mitti due to outburst of unknown virus .
• resulting in death of hen, cow and others pet animals

• More than 200 cattle have died in the western division of New South Wales over the past few months from a mystery disease.

•   "The first animals that are affected usually are calves, they might show things like just being off colour, or there might be a bit of scouring over a couple of days and then, you know, they'll die quite quickly," he said.
• "The other symptoms we've been seeing I suppose are upper respiratory tract signs or lung signs, or there might be some muck coming out their nose or a bit of froth at their mouth, so it's been a real mixed bag."

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• I was having a cup of tea in the kitchen when I heard  a 'brief' blurb on the news telling of a million fish that had died in  the Colorado River (covering an area of 7 miles). The reason given was  'lack of oxygen'. I waited to hear more on evening broadcasts (pictures)  and there was NOTHING ­ just that 30 second announcement.
• Corporate polluters, military  testing (sonar), corporate HOG farmers, etc, take precedence over the  health of the nation and our waters...

• Nine pygmy rabbits died at Northwest Trek near Eatonville during during the past month as an unexplained disease swept through the endangered population.

• The cause of the rabbits' deaths is unknown, but "the situation is being handled as a highly contagious, acutely lethal disease," according to a news release.

   

  They were of normal weight and eating well before their deaths, the release said.

   

  There "were no visible signs of distress or abnormal behavior within hours" of their deaths.
• sudden deaths

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• That number is double the annual average of whale bodies usually found washed ashore.
  
• The Junta de Andalucía’s Animal Recovery Centre is on alert because of the problem, and is concerned that the real number of deaths could be far higher.

• The number of mysterious duck deaths is higher and more widespread than first thought and the problem is not just limited to the Metro wastewater treatment plant
• A document from the Colorado Department of Health shows that not only have dead ducks turned up at the metro Denver plant, but also along the South Platte River. Wastewater treatment plants in Thornton, South Adams County, Westminster, Northglenn, and Littleton-Englewood have also reported a higher than normal number of duck deaths.
• Dead ducks have also been found at the Sunfish Lake near The Breakers apartments in Denver, officials said.
• "No one remembers ducks dying in these kinds of numbers,"
• Employees found more than 400 ducks dying from hypothermia but don't know what caused it.
• Scientists have ruled out avian flu and avian cholera
• Additional tests are being conducted at United States Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) labs in Ashland, Ore., and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) labs in Madison, Wis. CDOW and USFWS are confident there is no significant risk to public health,"
• "We are focusing on what causes the ducks to lose their waterproofing as well as the cause of the malnutrition evident in many of the birds,"

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• Experts from around the world are launching a campaign to tackle a mysterious killer fungus - which threatens to make frogs extinct. 

   The strange fungus has wiped out 170 species of frog in the last decade and an additional 1,900 species are threatened, but nobody has yet found a cure.

• 'This is the precedent of a disease working its way across an entire species on the scale of all mammals, all birds or all fish. 

   'Humans would be absolutely stupid if they didn't pay attention to that.' 

   Amphibians - of which frogs make up the majority - are a vital part of the food chain, eating insects that other animals don't touch and connecting the world of aquatic animals to land dwellers.  

   Without amphibians, the insects that would go unchecked would threaten public health and food supplies.

• Authorities in Costa Rica said Tuesday they are investigating the mysterious deaths of about 500 brown pelicans along the country's Pacific coast over the last five days but do not suspect bird flu was the cause.
• "This is a situation that is enormously worrisome," Costa Rican Environment Minister Roberto Dobles said.

• mass death of poultries was observed in several yards
• Besides, a lot of dead fowls were found in the water basins of the village, as well as in the ponds on the neutral strip on border with Iran.
• bird flu virus was not found in this territory during initial monitoring.

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• there's still no word on what caused the deaths of more than 60 birds.
• Preliminary tests showed no dangerous chemicals in the area, and the bird flu has been ruled out.
• While officials search for answers, they say they're confident that there's no public health threat.

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• On December 13, 2006, national news reported that over 2,000 mallard ducks were discovered dead along a remote creek outside of Oakley, Idaho, which is about 180 miles southeast of Boise and just north of the Utah border. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) has determined that the cause of the birds dying, which included one American Widgeon and one pintail duck, was aspergillosis, a fungal infection that may have resulted from the ducks ingesting grain or water contaminated with the aspergillus fungus.
• A similar die-off of mallard ducks occurred last year at a pond near Waterloo, Iowa. It was also determined that the cause was aspergillosis. Iowa happens to be the state that grows a lot of genetically modified corn and is the number 1 producer of corn in the U.S. Iowa farmers also apply bio-solids liberally to their farmland.
• Another mass poisoning occurred in Ada and Canyon counties (Boise and surrounding area) this past summer with the aerial spraying of Dibrom (naled – an organophosphate) to kill West Nile virus-carrying mosquitoes. Cargie Aitchison of Boise wrote in a letter printed in The Idaho Statesman on Sept. 19, 2006, that the birds have left Boise since the spraying began. From the letter: "I normally fill my bird feeders once a day. They have remained full since the spraying. It would have been nice if Ada County had investigated the real effect of neurotoxins on wildlife and humans, and asked for public opinion before dousing us with poison. The ‘Silent Spring’ has come to Boise."
• According to ExToxNet (Extension Toxicology Network), a pesticide information project from several U.S. universities, naled is moderately to highly toxic to birds and toxic to bees.
• Other concerns include the use of cloud seeding technologies in central Idaho that began Nov. 1, 2006. This technology uses a mixture of acetone and silver iodide that produces a silver iodide plume which is ingested by the cloud.
• Additionally, the U.S. military admits, there are the large amounts of barium particles and fiberglass-coated aluminum "chaff" being spewed throughout U.S. airspace from fighter planes during training exercises.
• Dr. Tenpenny discovered a map of dioxin concentrations in the soil of Vietnam, over 30 years after the U.S. military had used 11 million gallons of TCDD (most toxic of dioxins) containing defoliants, Agent Orange just being one of them, throughout that country. Later she found a map of human cases of avian flu in Southeast Asia. Since 91 of the human cases of avian flu were in Vietnam, she was not surprised when an overlay of the two maps literally matched.
• "the birds are simply acting as the canaries in the coal mine, alerting us of the impending doom if we fail to put brakes on the continual poisoning of our air, food and water."

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• THOUSANDS of birds have fallen from the skies over Esperance and no one knows why.
• A string of autopsies in Perth have shed no light on the mystery.
• Wildlife officers are baffled by the "catastrophic" event, which the Department of Environment and Conservation said began well before last week's freak storm
• District nature conservation co-ordinator Mike Fitzgerald said the first reports of birds dropping dead in people's yards came in three weeks ago. More than 500 deaths had since been notified. But the calls stopped suddenly last week, reportedly because no birds were left.
• Birds Australia, the nation's main bird conservation group, said it had not heard of a similar occurrence. "Not on that scale, and all at the same time, and also the fact that it's several different species," chief executive Graeme Hamilton said. "You'd have to call that a most unusual event and one that we'd all have to be concerned about."
• Some birds were seen convulsing as they died.

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• Joe Cordaro, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine  Fisheries Service, said he couldn't recall a similar spate of blue whale  deaths off California or anywhere else. "There's something a little  different going on right now," he said, "and we don't know what  it is."