Coast birds

Pesticide use threatens rare Hawaiian species

Given its fragile and unusually rich ecology, the Hawaiian island of Kauai seems ill-suited as a site for agricultural experiments that use heavy amounts of toxic chemicals. But four transnational corporations — BASF Plant Science, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont Pioneer, and Syngenta — have been doing just those kinds of experiments here for about two decades, extensively spraying pesticides on their GMO test fields. As a result, the landscape on the southwest corner of the island, around the town of Waimea, has become one of the most toxic chemical environments in all of American agriculture. This poses serious risks for the people of Kauai, as I’ve documented, but even less noticed are the hazards posed to the unique flora and fauna of the island and the coral reefs just off its shores. Each of the seven highly toxic pesticides most commonly used by the GMO giants on Kauai (alachlor, atrazine, chlorpyrifos, methomyl, metolachlor, paraquat, and permethrin) is known to be toxic to wildlife, plants, or both. The isolated geography of Kauai has fostered the evolution of a great diversity of birds, bugs, and plants. Kauai has more unique species — species that live only on the island — than anywhere else in the world, said Carl Berg, an ecologist and long-time advocate for clean water with the Kauai chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. Berg and others fear that these endemic species are being put at great risk of extinction by exposure to the chemicals, though he says he has no idea the extent of the damage. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added 48 species that live only on Kauai to the endangered species list in 2010, including two different species of the Hawaiian honeycreeper, a small bird, and the large Hawaiian picture-wing fly. Also, several protected marine species rest or breed on the island’s beaches, including the highly endangered Hawaiian monk seal and the threatened green sea turtle. Occasionally, an endangered leatherback and hawksbill sea turtle will wander close in. A total of 17 different kinds of dolphins and whales frolic in the island’s harbors and bays.

California brown pelican breeding population plunges

The once-endangered California brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) is in trouble again. The number of breeding pelicans has plunged drastically. An annual survey completed last month looked at breeding colonies in Mexico's Gulf of California, where 90 percent of the population nests. It found that this year, areas that typically host hundreds or thousands of nesting pairs sometimes held none at all, according to a statement Monday from the University of California, Davis. The California brown pelican was declared an endangered species in 1970 after being pushed to the brink of extinction by the pesticide DDT. It rebounded by 2009 but last year scientists said many birds were starving because their food supply — sardines — had crashed.

Migratory shorebirds that inhabit the Hunter estuary are facing extinction, birdwatchers say

The birds’ decline was a stark example of humanity’s lethal effect on wildlife and frightening capacity to exterminate animals, they said. ‘‘It’s terrible,’’ Hunter Bird Observers Club member Chris Herbert said. ‘‘You feel rather helpless that you’re monitoring the decline of a whole group of species in the estuary.’’The Hunter had the most important estuary along the NSW coast for the abundance and diversity of shorebirds, experts say. Birdlife Australia conservation partnerships manager Golo Maurer said the Hunter was ‘‘a key example’’ of threats shorebirds were facing worldwide. Mr Maurer said his organisation had continuously lobbied the federal government about the problem. Mr Herbert said more than 10,000 migratory shorebirds had come to the Hunter estuary every year in the 1970s. ‘‘We can now barely count more than 3000 of them,’’ he said. ‘‘If you project that decline into the future, they’re heading for local extinction in about 20 years.’’

De achteruitgang van vissen in de Waddenzee belooft niets goeds voor veel vogelsoorten

Vandaag is de nieuwe, interactieve website Waddenzeevismonitor.nl gelanceerd. Op de website is voor elke vissoort te zien hoe deze zich de afgelopen jaren heeft ontwikkeld in de Waddenzee. Het NIOZ, het Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut voor Onderzoek der Zee, meet al vijftig jaar lang het aantal soorten en de hoeveelheden vis in de Waddenzee. Het is nu voor het eerst dat deze onderzoeksgegevens voor een breed publiek toegankelijk worden gemaakt. Het blijkt dat de vangsten de laatste vijftig jaar fors zijn afgenomen. Het aantal vissen is gedaald en sommige vissoorten zijn nagenoeg verdwenen. Op de website kan iedereen eenvoudig vangstaantallen per vissoort opvragen. Ook is het mogelijk de visstand van meerdere vissoorten naast elkaar op te vragen in een grafiek. Van de bijna 80 vissoorten die de afgelopen vijftig jaar in fuik zijn gevangen, is achtergrondinformatie en duidelijk beeldmateriaal opgenomen.

Roseate terns are now close to extinction in Northern Ireland, according to a shock new bird report

The study from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has chronicled the fortunes of our seabirds and found that last summer a single pair in Larne Lough laid at least one egg, but no young are known to have fledged. It comes after the species suffered a "near-terminal decline" in the 1980s, according to the first annual Northern Ireland Seabird Report 2013, which charts the changing fortunes of the seabirds making their homes on our coastal habitats. BTO spokesman Shane Wolsey said roseate terns (Sterna dougallii) used to breed in good numbers in some coastal colonies here but stopped breeding on Mew Island in the Copelands in the early 1960s, and left Green Island in Carlingford Lough in the early 1990s. "It's been a long time coming. Roseate terns have just declined over donkey's years. The last ones have been breeding for some time in Larne Lough," he said. "We have one pair in Larne Lough. You only need something to happen to one of those birds and that is the end of that."

Thousands of ducks starving to death all over the Great Lakes

The Niagara River corridor from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario is renowned as a spectacular winter haven for hundreds of thousands of water birds. But this year’s bitterly cold season has made it notable for something else: dead ducks. Biologists say carcasses began piling up by the hundreds in early January after the plunging temperatures started icing over nearly the entire Great Lakes, preventing the ducks from getting to the minnows that are their main source of food. Necropsies on dozens of birds have confirmed the cause: starvation. “All have empty stomachs. They’re half the weight they should be,” said Connie Adams, a biologist in the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Buffalo office who has personally seen 950 dead birds. “This is unprecedented. Biologists who’ve worked here for 35 years have never seen anything like this,” she said. “We’ve seen a decline in tens of thousands in our weekly waterfowl counts.”

The local extinction of migratory shore birds in the Australian Hunter River estuary is forecast within the next two decades as numbers decline rapidly

The Hunter Bird Observers Club says figures for 2013 showed no improvement, with less than a third of the birds coming to the region when compared to 15 years ago. Member Chris Herbert says that is largely due to habitat destruction locally and at the bird's Northern Hemisphere refuel areas near China and Korea. He says three types of the 20-odd species that come to the Hunter are already gone. "Projecting the decline of these birds into the future from the data that we have in the future, which is very detailed data, there'll be virtually an insignificant number of migratory shore birds in the estuary during the next 10 to 20 years," he said. "It's that serious a decline and so steep."

De kaalslag in de duinen - Veel kenmerkende broedvogels, libellen en dagvlinders gaan achteruit

Veel vogelsoorten, waaronder vooral soorten van open duinen, zijn sinds 1990 achteruitgegaan.Veel dagvlinders komen in 1992 minder voor dan halverwege de vorige eeuw en een aantal soorten gaat ook na 1992 nog achteruit. Als geheel gaat de groep van libellen in de duinen sinds 1999 achteruit. De trend van drie soorten is nog onzeker en één soort, de paardenbijter vertoont een sterke achteruitgang. In het westen van Nederland is het oppervlaktewater sterk verontreinigd met pesticiden waaronder neonicotinoiden die uitzonderlijk giftig zijn voor ongewervelde dieren. Het gaat om de regio's Delfland, Rijnland en Bommelerwaard, waar de intensieve bollen- en bloementeelt grote hoeveelheden chemicaliën gebruikt. Gemiddeld verspreiden boeren zeven kilo chemicaliën over een hectare, in de bloembollenteelt is dat 42 kilo en in de bloementeelt 32 kilo. Deze milieuverontreiniging vormt een ernstige bedreiging voor ongewervelde dieren en soorten die van ongewervelde dieren afhankelijk zijn.

South Georgia grey-headed albatross added to the 'endangered species' list

South Georgia is home to around half the global population of breeding grey-headed albatross (Thalassarche chrysostoma) and the rapid rate of decline in numbers in the South Georgia colonies of grey-headed albatross is a major contributing factor to the birds being newly listed as ‘Endangered’. Bird numbers have been declining very rapidly over three generations (90 years); the major driver of declines is likely to be incidental mortality when the birds come into contact with lon-gline fisheries outside of the South Georgia area.

West Nile Virus Behind Utah Bald Eagle Deaths

A mysterious die-off of 27 bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) in Utah is being blamed on West Nile Virus, after lab tests from the state's Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) showed the deadly illness was behind the deaths. Officials with the DWR say the eagles contracted the virus after eating infected grebes. Luckily for other eagles in the area, though, they note that the grebe population should soon subside as that bird's migration season comes to an end. Five other eagles are being treated and rehabilitated by wildlife officials. The Utah DWR is urging residents not to try to handle any sick birds they might encounter.