Peru Pelican Mass Die-Off To Be Investigated

LIMA, Peru -- Peru's oceanographic agency says it will investigate the deaths of hundreds of pelicans on northern beaches where nearly 900 dolphins were recently found dead.

Puerto Eten fisherman's association president Fernando Niquen says his group found about 1,200 dead pelicans Thursday and Friday along a 105-mile (170-kilometer) stretch of coastline.

The government's Institute of the Sea says it found nearly 600 dead birds, mostly pelicans but also gannets, along a 43-mile (70-kilometer) stretch.

Its regional chief, Edward Barriga, recalled a mass die-off of pelicans and cormorants in the same area in 1997 due to the absence of anchovies blamed on the El Nino meteorological phenomenon.

Coast Guard official Cesar Villanueva in Lambayeque said Sunday he has never seen so many dying pelicans on the beach in 25 years on the job.

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Comments

[olitenup]

09:59 PM on 05/01/2012

Several thousand dolphins and now this.

In the US, we have a group of influence peddlers pushing this absurd "kill all predator policy" on our publicly owned land being peddled in DC by lobbyists of rich white men that hunt, and own cattle.

These rich old pompous arses have become blood thirsty.

[Just4theHalibut]

06:09 PM on 05/01/2012

"Its regional chief, Edward Barriga, recalled a mass die-off of pelicans and cormorants in the same area in 1997 due to the absence of anchovies blamed on the El Nino meteorological phenomenon." But we've been in La Nina phase recently,it is just now starting to transition toward El Nino. Next theory?

[Pehn Marques]

11:33 AM on 05/01/2012

My dad used to feed, at first, small flocks of cardinals, blue birds, etc... whatever came around. It became a nuisance , after awhile because there were so many of them after he died, we stopped feeding them. They became so used to have certain areas to go when there are multiple locations of feeders, like my dad. I wondered about this , too; logically some birds would rely on these feeders as flocks of families, perhaps hundreds at a time. Hope this helps.

[TheNewShadeofBlue]

05:16 AM on 05/01/2012

Frogs, Bee, Birds, Dolphins......There is a message here. Why are we having such a hard time reading it? Perhaps a massive depletion of the human species will wake us up.

[Linus521]

01:41 AM on 05/02/2012

If any credibility exists to the science of ecology, we are definitely killing all the reasons man breathes and exists. Pelicans in dieoff; dolphins in dieoff. This should have everyone alarmed as all things are interconnected.

Dieoffs are destructive to Earth and mankind. Let's figure out why.

[CPNASH]

04:25 AM on 05/01/2012

This will continue to happen as wildlife senses their means for sustaining a satisfactory existence is being threatened by the changing environment. Whatever the cause, it's happening globally with increasing frequency.

[buddbo1]

03:48 AM on 05/01/2012

Zimmerman on the loose, patrolling his mother's haunte with a gun.

[Wood Gas]

01:22 AM on 05/01/2012

Off the coast of Peru there are upwellings of cold nutrient rich water that produces plankton blooms. Some of the plankton produce neurotoxins that concentrate in the bodies of plankton eating animals. The fish that eat the plankton eaters concentrate the toxins more. Climate change is probably changing the food cycle in all the oceans. Some animals will adapt, some will wash up on the beach. No bets as to which group will be larger.

[southingtonian]

05:45 AM on 05/08/2012

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011683
We humans sit on the sharp peak of the food chain. If it collapses, we fall.

[Kenz300]

10:45 PM on 04/30/2012

We keep ignoring the canary in the coal mine to our own detriment.

[Almondo]

10:46 PM on 05/01/2012

The rich think they can just buy another canary.

[greenalva]

10:09 PM on 04/30/2012

Not to worry. Michio Kaku says all this stuff is normal. don't worry about it, he is a famous scientist, i trust his opinion.

[artleads]

10:18 AM on 05/01/2012

You only need to worry if you're a penguin.

[risavjl]

08:27 PM on 04/30/2012

Some of you don't realize that 10-15yrs ago you would have never heard of 9/10ths of the world news. The info generation began then with the internet. Today, with cam phones, EverythinG is documented by at least a half dozen or more people, in every neighborhood. 10yrs ago if there was a deadly tornado rolling around the plains and didn't hit anything, you would never had known. If it devastated a small town, it might not have even made the news. If a hailstorm/flood hit a town in Texas you would never have known. Now you know more, but you don't research it and you think it's getting worse. It's not. 15 years ago you might have been 5ys old, and saw No news. 15yrs is not much history. Now, with social media you have thousands of windows to the world. Nothing has changed. Everything has happened before, even bigger stuff. We have few "records" of major events on earth that occurred even 200yrs ago. So do not get upset when you hear of large eq's or tornado outbreaks etc. Tomorrow we might have 4 big eq's, and everyone is going to go nuts cuz it never happened before! But it has. A tornado outbreak today will be recorded heavily. 250 now was 250 'back then' but only 80 were recorded. The sciences etc have more technology than ever, and so do you. Learn before you leap.

[nathanoj]

09:35 PM on 04/30/2012

... uh huh, sure. You must have gotten your Ph.D from a Cracker Jack box.

[Lynne Resch]

06:29 PM on 04/30/2012

why do they always say these things are a "mystery"?... from the earlier article on the dolphin kill-off.... "He said officials don't believe the dolphins' deaths are related to seismic oil exploration work that was carried out off northern Peru between Feb. 8 and April 8 by the Houston-based company BPZ Energy." yeah right, paid for by ABC Energy Corp. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/21/official-dolphin-deaths-peru_n_1442243.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

[ChuckWillsWidow]

07:59 PM on 04/30/2012

Funny - there is always an investigation and nothing of importance comes of the studies. Nothing is solved. Theories float around like clouds and those clouds prevent clear answers, so we always go back to what they will say, (because they want to control the world?) - it is global climate change.
Ask them why they think this time is the perfect time as far as the weather is concerned. Ask them when it was better and what they are really trying to achieve? Ask them if is was global warming or global cooling 25 years ago when the last major event of this nature occurred. Ask them why they are so arrogant as to think that they matter either by breathing or not breathing. The arrogance and self-anointed "god complexes" of people who are global climate change nuts is astonishing. Why didn't they blame it on the BP spill? Or better yet, lets drag up the Exxon Valdez. Now there was IMO, a real eco disaster.

[Caroline Gay]

06:16 PM on 04/30/2012

it's the chemtrails
http://fightthenewworldorderwithme.blogspot.com/

[scodwyer]

06:05 PM on 04/30/2012

Species can only live in toxic Shxx for so long...that goes for us too. Just one big dump for corporations.

[rg9rts]

05:21 PM on 04/30/2012

There are a number of pathogens that we have no knowledge of, and many that we do, are mutating. No simple solution to a complex question with a number of possible vectors. What is scary is when these bugs jump species, ala AIDS. or H5N1.~~(^..^).

[MoreThanMeets The Eye]

04:32 PM on 04/30/2012

Oh why worry? The earth is too big to hurt. How many species do we need anyway? I bet we could get by with a few hundred species total. We just need to figure it out. Maybe jobs could be created by hiring people to get rid of all the excess species. Ecofreaks would have a fit, but get over it after a few beers. Weird unneeded species (which are most of them) can't put money in your bank. God Bless America.

[rg9rts]

05:00 PM on 04/30/2012

And you just heard from another Mitten Fan!!! ~~(^..^)

[freek79]

06:04 PM on 04/30/2012

Perhaps they could start with You?

[Alex Goncharenko]

07:07 PM on 04/30/2012

***Whooosh***
That was the sound of sarcasm going right over your head.