Marine Birds Starving, Fleeing Inland In Search Of Food As Sea Temperatures Spike Again Off California

[hatrack]

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Many seabirds, including California brown pelicans, loons and grebes, starved to death in recent months as record-setting ocean temperatures decreased the band of cold, nutrient-rich surface water where krill, anchovies and sardines thrive near the shore, said Russell, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “We’ve been seeing cormorants walk to shore and then just die within the hour. I mean one time it happened within 15 minutes, and I’ve never seen that before,” Russell said. “That has been heartbreaking for me and we’re seeing this happening across the whole coast.”

Scientists fear the die-off could worsen with the recently formed El Nino, the natural warming of parts of the central Pacific that alters weather worldwide and spikes global temperatures.The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in June confirmed an El Nino formed and it is expected to grow to historic strength. Die-offs of seabirds occur periodically, and not all the seabird deaths off California this year are tied to the marine heat wave, scientists and wildlife officials say. But such die-offs are becoming more frequent as the planet warms and oceans heat up.

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Wildlife rehabilitation facilities treated hundreds of emaciated birds this spring when the marine heat wave intensified. “It’s not abnormal to see dead birds on the beach, but the quantity of dead birds is unusual,” J.D. Bergeron, the CEO of ⁠International Bird Rescue, a global wildlife conservation organization that runs two aquatic bird rehabilitation centers in California, said in an interview in May.

Brown pelicans are turning up in inland lakes, Bergeron said. “When birds starve, especially the pelicans, they start to look in unusual places for food,” he said. “They will chase fishing boats, they will go to piers and you end up with birds with fishing line and fish hook injuries.”

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https://apnews.com/article/seabirds-marine-heat-wave-deaths-ocean-climate-056b2e8539df2d99d155a95c82ac67cc

[littlemissmartypants]

1. I love birds. This makes me so sad.