I spent several hours at Democrat Pt today, carefully checking the entire wrack line, and found 14 dead Great Shearwaters and a dead Leatherback Turtle (the folks in Riverhead have been notified).
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S37704445 I also just heard through Derek Rogers that dead Great Shearwaters have been found on the beach at Montauk. To me, the simultaneous deaths of these shearwaters, along with the Brown Booby and the Leatherback Turtle, seem more than a coincidence and are suggestive of something wrong out there in the blue water, probably relating to food. At this point, it seems that the weather pattern described by David Nicosia probably played a role in concentrating these animals in our area, but would not in itself have caused their distress. Andrew Farnsworth has described major sea surface temperature anomalies in the Atlantic; this sort of thing could have big impacts on marine food webs, and it is possible that the birds encountered food shortages over larger areas and longer periods than they could tolerate. Finally, Michael Schrimpf alerted us to a paper describing 12 mass mortality events involving Great Shearwaters on the US Atlantic Coast (GREAT SHEARWATER (PUFFINUS GRAVIS) MORTALITY EVENTS ALONG THE EASTERN COAST OF THE UNITED STATES. Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 49(2), 2013, pp. 235–245 # Wildlife Disease Association 2013. Katherine H. Haman,1,2 Terry M. Norton,2 Robert A. Ronconi,3 Nicole M. Nemeth,1 Austen C. Thomas,4 Sarah J. Courchesne,5 Al Segars,6 and M. Kevin Keel7,8). I haven't read this yet, but a quick scan reveals not only that many GRSH involved in strandings were emaciated, but also that in some cases they had swallowed plastic. We await further data on the scale of the wreck, and on the condition of the specimens that have been salvaged. Shai Mitra Bay Shore -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
