Over 15,000 baby sea lions estimated dead as Pacific sea life dies off

NaturalNews

Monday, December 14, 2015 by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer






(NaturalNews) The Marine Mammal Center rescued over a hundred sea lions in a 10-day period off the West Coast of California in the winter of 2015. The influx of stranded sea lions is a sign that the health of the ocean is deteriorating. From January 1 to February 12, 2015, National Geographic counted nearly 500 rescued sea lions, an amount that is alarming scientists. Something has gone awry in the West Coast waters.

The sea lions are not finding food, they are losing strength, and many are starting to wash ashore. The startling trend didn't start in 2015. The number of stranded sea lions began rising in the winter of 2013, when scientists started noticing waves of sea lion pups washing ashore. Scientists believe the ocean's temperatures have shifted. Warmer currents may be affecting food sources that the sea lions depend on. Others see problems in ocean water acidity. The animals are being forced to go on longer quests to find food. Many of the pups are being left behind, stranded, while their parents search for food.

One-third of sea lions born last summer wiped out

 

The death of this sentinel species is an indication of changes in ocean climate and ecosystem. Sea lion prey, which include sardines and crayfish, are reportedly disappearing in numbers as well, forcing the starving sea lions to go on longer quests in search of food. Scientists are concerned about ocean pH and rising acidity of the waters. According to San Jose Mercury News, marine biologists warn that, if the trend continues, an entire generation of California sea lions could be wiped out.
When speaking to NBC News, Sea World San Diego senior veterinarian Hendrick Nollens reported, "We had rescued 19 California sea lions in January [2013]. This year we already rescued 87 pups in that same month. So this event seems to be much larger."

According to the Daily Breeze, the "unusual mortality event" wiped out two-thirds of the sea lion pup population off the West Coast in 2013.

Rehabilitation centers are taking several hundred pups in this year to save the species from total extinction.

NOAA wildlife biologist Sharon Melin confirmed that most pups captured in the wild in 2013 were only half their weight. After they are released back into the wild, they are expected to maintain their weight. When Melin went on a research trip in September 2013, she reported that the weight of the pups was still low. She brought back the bad news: "We've told the centers to prepare for the worst."
The U-T San Diego concurred, reporting that pups in the Channel Island rookeries continued to struggle despite rehabilitation efforts. On average, pups were 19% below their average weight, even after rehabilitation.

Jim Milbury of NOAA Fisheries says that West Coast sea lions have a birth rate of about 50,000 a year, and San Diego 6 reported on Jan. 28, 2015, that nearly 1 of 3 pups born the previous summer have already died.

If 33% of pups born in 2014 have already died, then based on the average birth rate, over 15,000 have passed away in that short time frame. 

Ocean water acidity on the rise, subjecting aquatic life to disease

 

According to Jennifer Palma of Global News, ocean health is deteriorating, indicated by a die off of scallops and oysters. "Getting pacific oysters and scallops is next to impossible; the industry is in crisis. ... So what's killing the Pacific oysters and scallops? A possible combination of factors including warmer oceans, decreasing acidity levels and potentially disease," she said in a report.
University of British Columbia marine microbiology professor Curtis Suttle is concerned about changes in the pH of ocean waters. "The hypothesis -- there's a working hypothesis --w is that these changes, these excursions in pH, are making the shellfish vulnerable to infection by diseases that they would normally be resistant to."


Sources for this article include:


http://enenews.com
http://enenews.com
http://enenews.com
http://www.dailybreeze.com

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A Record Number of Mexico-Based Seals Are Washing Up Dead in California

Guadalupe fur seal

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October 2, 2015

The threatened Guadalupe fur seal could be the latest victim of the unusually warm waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Oct 1, 2015

Taylor Hill

is an associate editor at TakePart covering environment and wildlife.

The threatened Guadalupe fur seal is getting stranded on California’s coastline in record numbers, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Total number of Guadalupe fur seal strandings in California. (Chart: Courtesy NOAA)

The marine mammals typically spend their time off Mexico’s coast, but at least 80 of the pinnipeds have ended up on California’s shore emaciated, dehydrated, or dead. That’s a rate eight times higher than what’s documented in a typical year.

Of the 80 fur seals, 42 were found dead, and only 16 of the 38 found alive survived.
The unprecedented occurrence has led NOAA to declare an unusual mortality event for the seals, meaning its scientists will devote more time to studying the species, and more samples from rescued animals will be evaluated.

The fur seal’s struggles come during the same year that a record 3,500 California sea lions have washed ashore along California’s coast.

Read More Here

NOAA forecasters estimate a 70% chance of M-class flares and a 15% chance of X-class flares during the next 24 hours.

Earth Watch Report  -  Solar Activity

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Space Weather

by Dr. Tony Phillips.

GROWING CHANCE OF FLARES:

Sunspot AR2002 poses a growing threat for solar flares. Since the week began, the active region has more than tripled in size. It now has more than a dozen dark cores and sprawls across 100,000 km of solar terrain. Karzaman Ahmad sends this picture from the Langkawi National Observatory in Malaysia:

"AR2002 is so large," says Ahmad, "that I was able to photograph it using an ordinary 11-inch Celestron telescope capped with a Thousand Oaks Glass Filter." The exceptionally crisp image shows thousands of boiling granules surrounding the sunspot's dark cores. Each granule is about the size of Texas.

A 48-hour movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the sunspot's development:

The rapid growth of AR2002 has destabilized its magnetic field, which makes it more likely to erupt. NOAA forecasters estimate a 70% chance of M-class flares and a 15% chance of X-class flares during the next 24 hours.

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Deadly Monster Winter Storm Batters US Eastern Seaboard – More Snow and Ice on the Way!

Universe Today

by Ken Kremer on February 13, 2014

This visible image of the winter storm over the U.S. south and East Coast was taken by NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite on Feb. 13 at 1455 UTC/9:45 a.m. EST. Snow covered ground can be seen over the Great Lakes region and Ohio Valley. Image Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project

A deadly monster storm is battering virtually the entire US Eastern seaboard today, Thursday, Feb. 13, as it moves from the Southeast to the Northeast and into the New England states, wreaking havoc and causing miserable weather conditions for over 100 million Americas.
This afternoon, NASA and NOAA published a new image taken by a GOES satellite that showed the extent of the clouds associated with the massive winter storm over the US East Coast – see above and below.
Blizzard, white out and slippery conditions have already caused more than 18 deaths.
The killer storm has brought relentless waves of snow, sleet and ice over the past two days covering a vast swath stretching from inland to coastal areas as it moved up from the southern to northern states.
More than a foot of snow has already fallen in many areas today stretching from the Mid-Atlantic into the entire Northeast region.
Several states have declared states of emergency.
This is the season’s 12th snow storm. In many Northeast localities, the accumulated snowfall totals are three times the normal average. As a result many municipalities are running out of road salt.
And to add insult to injury, much more icy snow is falling overnight into Friday on top of the massive existing mounds and piles of frozen ice and snow that’s accumulated over the past few weeks of subfreezing temperatures.
There are also predictions for patches of “thunder snow” — which is a snow storm mixed with thunder and lightning!
Read More Here

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Leading Scientist On Fukushima Radiation Hitting West Coast of North America: “No One Is Measuring So Therefore We Should Be Alarmed”

Washington's Blog

Posted on January 26, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog

Federal, State and Local Governments Refuse to Test for Radiation on the West Coast of North America

Numerous models show that – while the ocean dilutes radiation – pockets and streams of concentrated radiation may still hit the West Coast of North America.
West Coast residents are very concerned.  Indeed, many local and state government officials have said that residents are inundating them with questions about Fukushima radiation.
And yet the government isn’t measuring seawater or fish on the West Coast for radiation.
Ken Buessler is the head scientist at Woods Hole in Massachusetts,  one of the world’s top ocean science institutions.  Much of Buessler’s career has focused on measuring radioactive particles in the ocean, and he’s been studying groundwater and ocean samples in and around Fukushima since the accident in March of 2011.
Buessler has consistently tried to downplay the risks from Fukushima, and yet even he admits that we won’t know unless we test.  Buessler noted this week:

The predictions are rather low and are not of direct concern, but no one makes measurements of these isotopes along the [West] coast .
***
No one is measuring so therefore we should be alarmed. I really try to take the approach that we shouldn’t trivialize the risks of radiation and shouldn’t be overly alarmed.

Buessler said last week:

What we don’t really know is how fast and how much is being transported across the Pacific. Yes, models tell us it will be safe, yes the levels we expect off the US West Coast and Canada we expect to be low, but we need measurements — especially now, as the plume begins to arrive along the West Coast and will actually increase in concentration over the next 1 to 2 years. Despite public concern about the levels, no public agency in the US is monitoring the activities in the Pacific.
***
Without careful, extensive, consistent monitoring, we’ll have no way of knowing how much radiation from Fukushima is reaching our shores, and how it could affect life in the ocean.

And:

Buesseler says no US government agency currently tests radiation levels in the Pacific Ocean.“I don’t expect the radiation levels to be high but we can’t dismiss the concerns that the public has.”
“The effects of Fukushima will be increasing as the front edge of a large water plume coming from the nuclear plant will reach California soon and increase over the years,” said Buesseler.
Buesseler recently took his concerns to Washington where he met with US government officials at the various agencies responsible for monitoring radiation levels in air, food, and water.
He said he visited officials at the Department of Energy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
“They all said that it’s not their responsibility to test the Pacific Ocean for radiation. This issue is falling between the cracks of government responsibility. It’s a health and safety issue here,” Buesseler said.

And Buesseler points out the circular reasoning which the government is using (at 10:00):

I completely agree that no radiation has been seen in the regards that we’re not really testing for it [laughter] in any organized way … We have very few data; it’s not really being organized. The government says we don’t really need to do that because we’re predicting very low levels.

This type of circular reasoning is – unfortunately – common these days. For example, when bad policy led to the 2008 financial crisis, the Gulf Oil spill, factory-farming caused disease, runaway pesticide use, and other problems, the government simply stopped testing or changed allowable levels.
U.C. Berkeley professor of nuclear engineering Eric Norman raises a similar point:

There is no systematic testing in the US of air, food, and water for radiation, continuous testing is needed”
***
“I’m not terribly confident in the information Japan is sharing about the plant’s activities and clean up. That’s why it’s even more important now to advocate for continuous testing of air, food, and ocean water for radiation.”

University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Doug Dasher notes:
There’s a lot of unknowns, a lot of uncertainties. There are others that also have the same message that they want to get out, we really need to sample to understand this and we really need to look at what’s happening out there in the ecosystem at the same time. There’s an opportunity to do this. It’s a huge amount of initial release, and the models do not address the continuing release [the models all assume that Fukushima was totally contained by about June 2011 ... in fact, it has leaked continuously hundreds of tons of radioactive water every day for more than 2/12 years]. Fukushima has continued to leak ….
***

Read More Here

Related articles

• Leading Scientist On Fukushima Radiation Hitting West Coast of North America: "No One Is Measuring So Therefore We Should Be Alarmed"
• US Residents Monitor Fukushima Radiation
• Ocean Radioactivity from Fukushima Leak to be Tracked
• Expert: "Can't be changed & can't be stopped"; Radioactive Fukushima water will continually enter ocean - Significant 'discreet leaks' recently - West Coast "should be alarmed" at lack of testing - Levels rising for 2 years & expected to increase
• Fukushima radiation more than 10 times the normal level is detected on California beaches

Giant Sunspot 1944/Now X-Flare Capable/Still Growing.

BPEarthWatch


   

Published on Jan 5, 2014

Extreme Cold Weather Warning. National Weather Service http://www.weather.gov/

 

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Bitterly Cold Temperatures and Dangerous Wind Chills Will Continue to Move South and East through the Early Part of the Week

Cold temperatures and gusty winds associated with an arctic airmass will continue dangerously cold wind chills as far south as Brownsville, Texas and central Florida. This arctic airmass will affect the eastern two-thirds of the country on Monday as a sharp cold front moves towards the East Coast. The cold temperatures will remain in place through mid-week before a warming trend begins.
Read More...

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