Thousands of birds fall from sky in Italy. WTF IS GOING ON?

Millions of fish wash up dead on Chesapeake Bay
Updated 1/6/2011 1:08:10 PM ET



Millions of dead fish have washed up along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay over the past week, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment.

Officials are investigating the fish kill but say that according to preliminary results the cause was likely stress from unusually cold water temperatures.

"Our theory is that it was a very rapid temperature drop," MDE spokeswoman Dawn Stoltzfus said. "Obviously, these are fish that are susceptible to very cold temperatures."

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A survey conducted by the Federation of Fishermen's Colony of Paraná, Paranaguá on the coast of the state, indicates that at least 100 tons of fish
(sardine, croaker and catfish) have turned up dead since last Thursday off the coast of Parana.

On Sunday, representatives from the Environmental Institute of Paraná (IAP), the Secretary of State for the Environment and Water Resources (SEMA),
took samples to verify the reason for the deaths. The report will be released today.

The president of the Federation of Fishermen's Colony of Parana, Edmir Manoel Ferreira, reports that between Paranaguá and Guaraqueçaba at least 2,800 fishermen depend on the daily seafood.

"On Thursday we began to realize very dead fish. Only one community came to bury 15 tons. We are experiencing a very sad situation on the coast"

Apart from Paranagua, Ferreira said the dead fish are starting to appear in other coastal towns. "The dead fish are going to Antonina, and Guaraqueçaba Pontal do Paraná. We need an urgent solution to this," he warns.



Captain Edson Oliveira Avila, regional coordinator of Civil Defense in the Paraná region, believes there are three hypotheses for the death of fish. "We will wait to see what happened, but speculations suggest that fish may have died due to an environmental imbalance, dropping a fishing boat or leakage of chemicals," he says.

Through his press office, the city of Paranagua said the sale of seafood is a precaution, temporarily suspended in the region.

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http://www.sott.net/articles/show/220958-Brazil-100-tons-of-dead-fish-wash-up-on-shore

When thousands of blackbirds in Arkansas and hundreds of songbirds in Louisiana were found dead this weekend, people's imaginations went wild. But as strange as the news might have seemed, mass wildlife deaths aren't unusual. Ask Calvin Gehri.

A biology technician for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in La Crosse, Gehri has collected dead waterfowl on the Mississippi River every spring and fall for the past eight years.

There usually are too many to count. In November, he estimated about 4,000 corpses were floating in the water above Lock and Dam No. 8 at Genoa, and another 400 upstream in pool 7.

"In La Crosse there are thousands of birds dying every year, but because they're not hitting people's roofs and lawns it's not getting as much attention," said Krysten Schuler, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, where scientists were testing birds collected in Arkansas and Louisiana to find out what killed them.

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Fisheries officials are investigating the death of hundreds of snapper washed up on Coromandel Peninsula beaches.

Beachgoers at Little Bay and Waikawau Bay found the fish - many with their eyes missing - dead on the sand yesterday.

Aucklander James Hughes, who was visiting friends, said they were sitting around when children in their group ran towards them holding fish.

"We said, 'Where'd you get them?' and they said they just started floating up to the beach."

Mr Hughes and others on the beach began walking towards the spot where the fish had washed up, and found many dead fish in the water too.

"We spoke to boaties coming in and they said there was a carpet of them floating in the water."

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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10697906

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Charlotte Pearsall, whose family have lived at Little Bay for the last 30 years, said she had never seen anything like it.

"It was so surreal," she said. "It's such an incredible waste - it could've fed the whole northern tip of the Coromandel."

People with binoculars said the snapper stretched as far as they could see and boaties reported "a carpet of floating fish further out to sea all along the coast".

"We initially thought 'woohoo a free feed' but they had really cloudy eyes and you could see the birds had been at them. Some of them had no eyes," Pearsall said.

Her parents called the Department of Conservation and were told it was most likely the fish had starved due to weather conditions, but Pearsall did not think that was the case as many of the fish looked big and healthy.

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http://www.smh.com.au/environment/hundreds-of-dead-snapper-washed-up-on-new-zealand-beach-20110105-19fdr.html