Archive for the ‘Sea Bird Issues’ Category

It may be a funny title but it’s definitely a serious issue because it’s the turtles and other marine life that have been most affected by last year’s oil disaster of the Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico.

The scientific evidence is just beginning to be released as to the effects the spill had on the marine environment.  However many experts are saying that the data will have to be collected for years to come before we see the true results of that disaster.

The fact that the well rupture and spill happened 50 miles offshore means that there will be things happening that are out of sight and that we may not have the facilities to ever discover. Also, the unprecedented amount of dispersants used will have impacts we can’t even guess at.

Long term effects like the reproductive capability of the animals, the impact of so much spilled oil on the food chain and the sinking of the oil onto the seabed will take time to show.  Equally, the area affected is so large that we may yet see surprises we haven’t anticipated, according to a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin. (NOAA).  Finding dead baby dolphins, sea turtles – Loggerheads, Leatherbacks and the most critically endangered species, the Kemp’s Ridley, plus many other animals are among those “unanticipated surprises”. Read the rest of this entry »

Bright Lights Kauai Hawaii

On the island of Kauai, Hawaii, the bright lights are endangering the seabirds by distracting and disorientating them.  Often on their maiden flight the young seabirds are caught in the glare of very bright light, rather than being guided by the light of the moon and are killed or injured when they crash into objects.

They will also circle around and around until they are exhausted and fall to the ground where they are killed by cats, dogs and other human activities.  Or, they die of starvation and dehydration.

With the growing popularity for windfarms birds are having to deal with yet another great hazard.   The location of windfarms close to breeding grounds and the annual migrations when huge numbers of birds fly across the seas, mostly at low altitudes and at night, greatly increase the potential for collisions with the turbine blades. Poor visibility during adverse weather conditions adds to this potential.

Finally, windfarms act as barriers to migrating birds and if they are rerouted from their favourite flight paths, the result could be an increase in the distances they must travel as well as lowering their survival rates due to fatigue and the survival of their offspring because on the new routes, food could become more difficult to find.

Oil Rig

Global warming is having a huge effect on the North Sea.  This sea is warming and the plankton upon which everything else depends is dying and as a consequence the whole eco system of the North Sea is changing, leaving the seabirds with not enough to eat.

In June of 2004, scientists were baffled by hundreds of seabirds, seemingly healthy, washing up dead on the Norfolk coast.  The post mortem reports showed that almost all of the birds found on coasts around the North Sea, were adult females.  The cause of death of each of these birds was acute starvation.  What was happening out there that was causing the birds to starve?

Data from over 70 years of studying plankton around the British coast shows that the North Sea is warming and that the cold-water plankton has already migrated up to 1000 kilometers north. The loss of this vital food supply – plankton – affects the whole eco system.  It is the building block of the food chain and as it disappears fish, birds and other animals that feed on both the fish and the plankton will starve to death.

As the temperatures warm, conditions and the creatures we see in much warmer waters, such as red mullet, squid and pilchards, are becoming more common in the North Sea.

And the North Sea isn’t the only place this is happening.  In 2006 the Pacific coastline of North America started seeing similar warming of the water with similar results – dead seabirds, failure of breeding colonies, starving chicks, emaciated gray whales and the appearance of creatures normally found much farther south.

Squid, normally found south of San Francisco, has arrived on the coastline of Washington and a bloom along Oregon’s beaches of a type of plankton usually found around San Diego, are cause for real concern.  So is the fact that the top 300 feet of the Pacific Ocean has become warmer and much more dense in the last 30 years.  Since the 1970’s, the number of seabirds in Puget Sound has dropped by nearly 50% and there has been a significant die-off of kelp off the coast of southern California.

The scientists are warning us that there are some really important changes occurring in both the Pacific coastal system and the North Sea and of course, elsewhere as well.  So as weather patterns alter and the planet warms further, will we see ever fewer of the seabirds and other animals that currently inhabit these seas?

It’s estimated that 2.4 million pieces of plastic enter the world’s ocean’s every hour.  And, nearly EVERY piece of plastic ever made still exists!

No wonder plastic waste is found in the stomachs of 90% of all seabirds around the globe. Seabirds and other sea creatures think plastic bits are food, so they eat it and feed it to their chicks.  The plastic fills their stomachs and intestines, robs them of vital nutrients as well as making them feel full but starving them at the same time.

During one study of dead Fulmars found in the countries bordering the North Sea, 19 out of 20 birds had significant numbers of pieces of plastic in their stomachs.  One in particular had ingested 20.6 grams of plastic – that is the equivalent of 2 kilos or nearly 4½ lbs in a human’s stomach!

We’ve all heard about oil spills all over the world but have you ever heard of a plastic spill?  Surprisingly not all of the plastic that is floating in the oceans is rubbish that has been thrown away, most of it is plastic resin used in the production of plastic products or the finished products breaking down into hard plastic particles or Styroform nodules .  This stuff is accidentally spilled into the oceans from shipboard containers or into storm drains from trucks transporting it along our streets.

Birds, fish and other marine creatures eat these floating pellets thinking they are fish eggs. In one study in Hawaii, 70% of the plastic ingested by birds was plastic resin pellets floating in their environment.  And there is NO safe places for seabirds, turtles or other sea creatures.  Plastic is everywhere – when there is a spill of plastic resin pellets, it’s not cleaned up like oil spills are, the pellets either sink to the bottom of the sea, wash up onto beaches, are ingested by birds and animals or continually swirls around and gathers into huge floating masses.

Balloons released at a party may be great fun but they are a real hazard to birds and other wildlife. Plastic decomposes in salt water so the seabirds and other marine wildlife ingest a toxic cocktail of chemicals, including PCB’s.

In 2006, the Environmental Program from the United Nations reported that, floating on or near the surface of the water, there was an estimated average of 46,000 pieces of plastic rubbish in every square mile of the world’s oceans!

Think about all of the different plastics you use every day – diaper liners, milk bottles, water bottles, plastic bags, plastic wrap – one study estimates that every year we use enough plastic wrap to “shrink wrap the whole state of Texas”.  Here are a few more facts.  It takes 500 years for a plastic bag and 75 years for a plastic cup to decompose in a landfill.  Plastic milk jugs will disappear in about a million years!

A styrofoam cup dropped on the street causes, through its decomposition, more damage than throwing a stick of dynamite into the sea.  That one action sets into motion, for hundreds of years to come, death and destruction by “killer plastic”.

Global Warming

Birds have been exploited for over 5000 years for food, their oil and their feathers.  The collection of their eggs has taken some species to the point of extinction.  In the 1800’s the millinery trade’s demands for feathers for ladies hats again put great pressure on some species.  ‘Mutton birding’ or harvesting shearwater chicks before they are fledged is still done by some of the indigenous people of New Zealand and Tasmania Australia.  The demand however has dropped for these birds for food and many of the younger people within these communities no longer want to carry on the practice.

The introduction of other species such as rats and feral cats has lead to the massive predation of sea birds.  Since many of these birds breed on the ground on small isolated islands without predators, they have lost their defence mechanisms so are at the mercy of these introduced predators. Disturbance of breeding colonies by humans, often environmental tourists, has reduced the reproductive results of some seabirds.  Once disturbed the adult birds may not return to the nest thereby exposing their eggs and chicks to potential predators.

Another problem man has created for seabirds is the introduction of herbivores such as rabbits, goats and cattle into areas where there are ground nesting birds.  Plants that could give shelter and protection to the young birds are greatly reduced or eliminated, again leaving them more vulnerable to the elements and predators.

First of all, what is a sea bird?

California Gull

These are birds that have evolved to live, feed and breed on or near the oceans, on or near the shore line, in land but still feeding from the seas and those who live on or near rivers, lakes and waterways of all sorts.

For the millennia, birds have adapted to living in and on fresh and salt water.

They have developed webbed feet that assist them with diving and swimming underwater as well as moving along the surface of the water.

Another adaptation has been the development of salt glands by which sea birds eliminate the salt they take in by drinking the ocean’s water and feeding on other creatures living in the oceans.

Sea birds have many more feathers than land birds partly because the denser the plumage, the better the protection from the cold, from getting wet and water logged.  Feathers are hollow so the birds gain both buoyancy and insulation from them, keeping them dry and warm.

Sea birds have a very different life spans than land birds, they often live between 20 and 60 years.  Because of the conditions in which they live, they often delay the start of their breeding for up to 10 years and have fewer young per breeding period.  Their breeding may also be spread over two years rather than happening every year.  Again because of the conditions at sea, the scarcity of available food or the distances the parents have to fly to get food, sea bird young are looked after by their parents for far longer than land birds.  Sea birds will also often mate for life or at least will be monogamous for a breeding season.

While there are some land birds that also migrate great distances, sea birds are known for their phenomenal travels, for instance the Arctic Tern will be born in the Arctic but flies to the Antarctic to over winter.  Another great traveller is the Sooty Shearwater who flies 40,000 miles or 64,000 km in their annual migration!

Damaging Smoke and Fires

So far we’ve discussed the impact that man-made hazards can have on seabirds but what about natural events such as fires, floods, hurricanes, volcanoes, algal blooms etc. that could spell disaster for them?

Severe weather events, fires, floods, tsunami and volcanoes actually have little impact on seabirds primarily because birds and other animals are so much better tuned into the vagaries of nature.  They generally don’t get caught in severe storms because they leave before the storms come or they take shelter wherever they can if they can’t fly away quickly enough.  Sometimes migrating birds crossing open sea, may get caught by hurricane winds but even here because the birds are tuned in, they make alterations in their flights paths to avoid the severe weather.

Coastal habitats are vital to birds for shelter as well as for food and resting places.  Man can do quite a lot to help by not cutting down sheltering trees, not building right up the shoreline and making sure that supplementary food is put out for the birds after severe weather in which the food they normally eat – berries, nuts and fruits – may have been stripped from trees and bushes.

Algal blooms are becoming a more well-known phenomena around all of our coast lines and something birds can not outrun (outfly!).  Tens of thousands of seabirds died in October 2009 off the coast of Washington and Oregon because of the bloom created by Akashiwo sanguinea, a single-cell algae or phytoplankton.

These algal blooms can spell disaster for seabirds because when two specific conditions combine – low salinity and warm water – the algae’s reproduction explodes.  Winds then blow the algal bloom onshore where the surf whips it up into a sticky foam.  The foam sticks to the seabirds and strips the waterproofing from their feathers.  Once stripped of this critical element, the birds die of hypothermia or drown.

Algal blooms are happening more often and in more places.  Is this as many scientists think, part of global warming and climate change?  Can humans do anything about this?