A vet this weekend euthanised a majority of the eider ducks being looked after in Suðureyri, the Westfjords, after over 9,000 litres of oil spilled into the sea from a tank owned by the Orkubú Vestfjarða energy company. The leak killed at least a hundred birds, but dozens more were rescued.
Over the last two years, more than 500 northern fulmars were found sick or dead along the Sonoma and Mendocino coasts. What is ailing these seabirds?
The openings were left after ice-in started during a cold snap, but didn’t quite finish in the deepest parts of the lake, about a quarter of a mile off shore. The two loons were stuck and unable to take off, because common loons require a water “runway” to push off and get airborne. Farther up the lake, three other loons were stuck in similar fashion.
Close to 300 birds were found during a sweep of East Fjords beaches. No sign of bird flu was found in samples from dead seabirds. It is thought likely the birds died of hunger, as most were very thin. No widespread seabird deaths have been reported in any other region at this time.
An outbreak of avian flu that has killed vast numbers of domestic and wildfowl in recent weeks in northern Israel has likely reached its peak and began to abate over the past week, officials said Friday. In the Hula Lake Reserve, some 5,000 cranes died of the disease. The grim job of collecting crane carcasses from the lake by the ministry’s staff and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority was expected to end on Monday, the report said.
Highly pathogenic avian influenza has been confirmed at an exhibition farm in Newfoundland, Canada. The OIE report identified the affected birds as “non-poultry including wild birds.” On the premises, there were 419 susceptible birds. Of those, 360 died and the remaining 59 were euthanized. A Canada goose died from avian influenza on in the Halifax area on February 2 (see related articles).
The Steller's sea eagle — native to China, Japan, the Koreas and eastern Russia — was spotted along the Taunton River in Massachusetts on Monday. It was first seen in Alaska in the summer of 2020.
Scientists now say that the harmful alga will survive the winter and that it will probably turn green in the Oslo fjord next year as well.
The native range of the Steller’s sea eagle is typically China, Japan and Korea and the east coast of Russia. While some have flown as far east as western Alaska, none have ever been known to appear near the Atlantic Ocean.
Winter will never be the way it was, according to scientists. Towards the end of the century, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute predicts that the winter weather will gradually disappear from Oslo.
This morning it was as hot in Narvik as in Rome and Istanbul, and far warmer than countries in southern Europe. However, the mild air is on the wane.
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