BIGGEST WILDLIFE DIE-OFF EVER RECORDED

IT EXTENDS FROM MEXICO TO ALASKA AND IS CLASSIFIED AS A WASTING DISEASE WHICH ALSO WREAKS HAVOC WITH REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEMS, "MELTS" BODY TISSUE, CREATES VISIBLE AND RAPIDLY SPREADING LESIONS, AND HAS KILLED PERHAPS BILLIONS OF ANIMALS.
(BUT HARDLY ANYONE IS BLAMING RADIATION, WHICH CAUSES THE SAME SYMPTOMS.)  

IT WAS FIRST IDENTIFIED IN 2013, BEGAN SUDDENLY AND IS ESCALATING.

"This is the single largest, most-geographically widespread marine disease that's ever been recorded." 
(BUT HARDLY ANYONE IS BLAMING RADIATION.)  

THEY THOUGHT A VIRUS WAS CAUSING THE MASS DEATHS, BUT THE SAME VIRUS WAS FOUND IN PRESERVED SPECIMENS FROM DECADES AGO AND THERE WERE NO MASS DIE-OFFS THEN. 
(BUT HARDLY ANYONE IS BLAMING RADIATION.)  

"No pathogen has ever wiped out its host population without being pushed significantly by some other environmental factor," explained Ian Hewson.


THEY THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE DUE TO WARMER WATERS AND ALGAE BLOOMS, BUT BOTH OF THOSE HAVE ALSO HAPPENED IN THE PAST AND CREATED NO SUCH 90 to 95% MASS DIE-OFFS IN THESE CREATURES. 
"In some areas not one of the species can be found."
(BUT HARDLY ANYONE IS BLAMING RADIATION.)  

"We knew it was a big deal around here, but to put it in context — yeah, it's a really big deal."

 "When a single species gets wiped out or experiences a drastic change in population, that has ramifications up and down the food chain,"  said Dr. Martin Haulena, the veterinarian for the Vancouver Aquarium

CASCADE EFFECT: SEA STAR'S DEATH AFFECTS OTHER MARINE LIFE 
http://www.aquablog.ca/2014/07/sea-star-wasting-syndrome-affecting-other-marine-life/
---

A "CALMING ARTICLE" WAS TROTTED OUT BY
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, September 15, 2015   

[NOTE: THE DENSOVIRUS DID NOT TURN OUT TO BE THE "KNOWN CAUSE" AS REPORTED BY NATIONAL GEO. THE CAUSE IS STILL "UNDETERMINED" AS REPORTED BY RESEARCH SCIENTISTS INVOLVED JUST LAST MONTH  <HERE>.]

THREE YEARS AND COUNTING    
It's been three years since millions of sea stars from Alaska to Canada and down to Baja, Mexico started wasting away into gooey white mounds. And although the destruction wrought by this disease shows no signs of stopping, the pace of the die-off has slowed.

That's partly because so many sea stars have already died, says Ben Miner, a marine biologist at Western Washington University in Bellingham.
Some areas have seen up to a 90% [NO, 95%]  decline in their populations.

Scientists identified the likely culprit last year: A pathogen known as a densovirus, part of the same parvovirus group that can cause gastrointestinal problems in unvaccinated dogs. So they've shifted their efforts to monitoring sea star populations and investigating why this disease—probably caused by a very common ocean virus—is now rampaging through 19 species of sea stars."

SORRY, NGEO, TRY, TRY AGAIN?
---
BACK TO THOSE ACTUALLY INVOLVED IN THIS DIE-OFF STUDY:

FROM ONE WHO ATTENDED THE CONFERENCE OF SCIENTISTS STILL TRYING TO DETERMINE CAUSE OF THIS ONGOING EXTINCTION EVENT:

Challenges: figuring out what causes the disease is difficult and remains elusive. 
   "Its important to realize that we still do NOT KNOW the actual CAUSE of the disease.

We have yet to identify exactly HOW Starfish Wasting Disease actually works. In other words, what actually happens to the animal to initiate death?

Just because we have this "disease associate" does not actually mean that it causes the disease.. it could simply be present with the disease as part of the suite of entities (e.g., bacteria, protists, etc.) taking advantage of the sick animals. Or it could be something already present that has become fouled or modified by some other factor.

My take away message was that MULTIPLE lines of evidence (genetics, tissue analysis, external observations, etc.)  should all converge on the same conclusion.

 In other cases, pathologists are able to actually observe the agent (virus, bacteria, etc.) perform whatever action it takes to create the disease and thus the symptoms..

At this point, we are still working on what actually causes the "wasting symptoms" to occur. This is not to say we are clueless about it..but a definitive cause has not been shown.   

MANY populations have been decimated. Localized populations have been wiped out."  
[NOTE:But SOME sea stars have survived here and there.]

THE DIE-OFF HAS SPREAD TO THE EAST COAST AND GULF OF MEXICO.

THESE EVENTS HAPPENED LAST MONTH, JAN. 2016:

Tens of thousands of starfish wash up in the Gulf of Mexico

Thousands of dead starfish at Port St. Joe beach, Florida ...

"There is an ongoing "die off" event on the east coast but it has not been as thoroughly evaluated as the study on the west coast:"
.  This 2012/2013 blog by Elena Suglia documents some of this phenomena

"And there are many more species — including the many-armed sun star — that are getting sick, said Haulena, as well as possible signs of disease in sea urchins and sea cucumbers."

MORE SPECIES, INDEED, LIKE SEVERAL SPECIES OF SEA BIRDS, WITH THE SAME TYPE "WASTING DISEASE", ALSO DEAD AND DYING FROM SOUTH AMERICA TO ALASKA, BUT IN GREATER NUMBERS FROM THE UPPER CALIFORNIA COAST TO ALASKA, WHERE RECENTLY THE BIRD BODIES WERE "KNEE-DEEP" ON SOME ALASKAN BEACHES, EMACIATED, ALSO WITH DAMAGED INTERNAL ORGANS.

Something is killing Alaska’s common murres.
"Anyone who has walked Homer, Alaska’s beaches the past few weeks has seen a horrid event. 
Every few yards along the tidal wrack line, the white chests of dead birds stand out among kelp and driftwood. 

On New Year’s Day 2016, a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Biologist counted 8,000 dead murres on a 1-mile stretch of beach in Whittier.

 In the summer of 2015, the murres also suffered a complete colony collapse and failed to breed.

“We had complete reproductive failure, which is really rare for murres,” said Heather Renner, a bird biologist with the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge."

DEAD BIRDS AND DEAD STARFISH WASH ASHORE TOGETHER.
(BUT HARDLY ANYONE IS BLAMING RADIATION.)  

ALSO LAST MONTH, Lani Raymond, a Homer birder who has volunteered with the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Training program since 2009, did her monthly COASST survey of a ¾-mile stretch of beach along Mud Bay heading east from the access road to the beach from the old airport parking lot.
She counted 118 dead murres and also saw hundreds of dead sea stars.
“It’s really bad,” Raymond said. “It’s really depressing.  
The day we did the 118 murres and all those star fish, I was really upset.”

COASST volunteers first noticed an increase in dead murres starting in July, 2015.

WHEN DID NOAA AND OTHERS BEGIN ADMITTING THE FUKUSHIMA "PACIFIC PLUME" HAD ARRIVED "EARLIER THAN EXPECTED" IN NORTHERN WATERS?
AROUND FEBRUARY, 2015.

First radioactivity from Fukushima hits B.C. coast, detected on the B.C. shoreline


"Canadian scientists first detected Fukushima radioactivity 1,500 kilometres west of B.C. in June 2012, more than a year after a huge earthquake triggered the tsunami that flooded the Fukushima

BUT DENIAL REIGNED SUPREME, NO WORRIES, EVERYTHING IS JUST FINE, FOR THE "EXPERTS" HAD SPOKEN BEFORE THE PLUME ARRIVED EARLY.

" I would say that there’s a small proportion of the public who hold the belief that the Pacific Ocean and our coasts are void of life because of radiation from Fukushima,” Cullen said.
“When we look at the levels that we’re detecting both offshore and now inshore, they simply aren’t high enough to affect marine organisms or human beings in such a negative way.”

OTHER "COINCIDENCES" CENTER AROUND JUNE-JULY, 2015 WHEN SEA STAR DEATHS SEEMED TO PEAK:

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists have caught a tropically-inclined ocean sunfish 40 miles off Southeast Alaska’s Icy Point; Ketchikan is experiencing its largest plankton bloom in at least 30 years; Auke Lake’s out-migrating pink salmon left earlier this year than they ever have; Dolly varden char also out-migrated through the weir on the earliest date ever; After a day’s rain last week, the temperatures at the weir were 18 degrees Celsius,64.5 degrees Fahrenheit — unusually warm, especially because rain usually cools things off. 
Water temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska and locally are a degree to several degrees warmer than normal as well, and whales have floated belly-up in Kodiak.

Unprecedented things are happening in Alaska’s marine environment,... scientists are reluctant to point to a clear cause...

"You can’t say ENSO (El Niño) is always good or always bad (for marine life),” said NOAA Research Fishery Biologist Joe Orsi. “It’s frustrating. As a scientist, you want to make a definitive claim on something.”
(BUT HARDLY ANYONE IS BLAMING RADIATION.)  

California sea lions have been observed around Yakutat, scientists say.
In Southern California, a more typical habitat, this has been a record year for sea lion pup strandings. 
The pups are starving. 
 
[THEY ALSO TESTED POSITIVE FOR LEUKEMIA, REMEMBER?]

Other unusual species have showed up in Alaska, as well. 

Someone out of Sitka caught a yellowtail jack, a chartered NOAA research vessel 40 miles off Icy Point caught an ocean sunfish, and market squid have laid egg cases on king salmon nets at Little Port Walter’s hatchery. A separate June NOAA survey observed several of the squid off Icy Point.

Some algae and plankton are early this year. 
Some are simply not normal for Southeast Alaskan waters.

The Ketchikan area is also experiencing its largest “blue/green algae” bloom in at least 30 years, Alaska Department of Fish and Game fish biologist Scott Walker said.

Common anomalies?
Anomalies aren’t anomalous themselves, Juneau-based marine ecologist Michelle Ridgway said — “over the millennia, Eskimos have seen sea turtles,” she said.
It’s the overall conditions that are worrisome.

“This is a whole different world on a number of levels,” she said of current ocean conditions.

Other factors are abnormal too, she said: There’s not as much fresh water on the ocean’s surface, the ocean’s salt levels are higher than normal, and “temperature at depth is the real story.”
“There have been emergencies based on the temperature that have gone silent because nobody wants to sound the alarm, because the impact has been so profound,” Ridgway said.
An example, she said, was high temperature water in some Southeast Alaskan hatcheries leading to “altered fry release timing.”

Ridgway has been measuring water column temperatures at locations around Southeast Alaska.
Those, too, are high.
“I’m seeing higher surface temperatures than I’ve ever recorded,” she said.

IT WAS NOT ALGAE THAT CAUSED THE WHALES TO DIE.

Test results recently showed that it WASN'T domoic acid (amnesic shellfish poisoning) that caused the whales’ death.
At the end of August, Kate Wynne, University of Alaska Fairbanks professor and Marine Mammal Specialist, expects results of two other tests — one for the toxin that causes PSP and one for Cesium 137 radionuclide, which is produced in nuclear reactors like the one that suffered damage after Japan’s 2011 earthquake.

"PRELIMINARY RESULTS" FOR THAT ONE FIN WHALE SAMPLED FOR CESIUM OUT OF 33 THEY COULD HAVE TESTED?

"Muscle tissue from the fin whale sampled was sent to the University of Alaska Fairbanks for cesium analysis, and preliminary results do not suggest any unusual exposure to human-generated radionuclides that would be considered harmful to wildlife.  Further testing is underway."

YES, IT HAD DETECTABLE AMOUNTS OF RADIATION, BUT NOT "UNUSUAL".
"FURTHER TESTING"?
AFTER YEARS, WHEN THE LEVELS HAVE FALLEN A BIT MORE?

2014 was a record breaker for Alaska (not to mention the entire planet).
 It was the warmest year in about 135 years of planetary temperature record-keeping. 

“Something’s changing,” Orsi said. 
“There’s definitely a human signature there responsible for part of it. But you’ve also got natural cycles of things … This looks as close to climate change as you’re going to get.”

(BUT HARDLY ANYONE IS BLAMING RADIATION.) 

BUT SOME ARE.

HAVE A READ AT
https://hatrickpenry.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/plume-gate-abstract/

THE RELEASE BY FILINGS FOR DOCUMENTS UNDER 'FOIA' HAS SHOWN THE TRUTH AND THE REALITY OF HOW DESPERATELY OUR 'REGULATORY AND PROTECTION' AGENCIES HAVE WORKED TO ASSUAGE OUR CONCERNS ABOUT FUKUSHIMA.

THE BIG NUKE BOYS ARE BUSTED.

AGAIN, https://hatrickpenry.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/plume-gate-abstract/ .

AND "Fukushima: Radiation Measurements So High they had to be Redacted".

AND Japan Nuclear Plant Accidents-Falsifications: TEPCO-KEPCO

AND Biological Consequences of Nuclear Disasters: 


GO, READ, BE APPALLED, SEE THE ACTUAL INTERNAL DOCUMENTS THAT SHOW US WE SHOULD ALL DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY FROM THOSE WHO CONTINUE TO ALLOW THE JAPANESE DISASTER TO CONTINUE, UNABATED, AS THEY HAVE ALLOWED IT FOR 5 LONG YEARS NOW. 

LOOK AT THE STAGGERING NUMBERS OF MARINE SPECIES MASS DIE-OFFS, FROM PLANKTON AND KELP TO THE GREAT WHALES. 

UNDERSTAND THAT, IF NO ONE FORCES JAPAN TO END THIS BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY, THAT WE, WE HUMANS, WE WILL BE THE NEXT 'STATISTIC', THE NEXT "UME".

CALL YOUR ELECTEDS, CALL THEM LIARS, ASK THEM WHY.






___________________

OTHER SOURCES FOR THIS POST:

~ The Sea Star Wasting Site at UCSC:
http://www.eeb.ucsc.edu/pacificrockyintertidal/data-products/sea-star-wasting/
 

~ A useful summary page from Sanctuary Integrated Monitoring Network (SIMoN)
http://sanctuarysimon.org/projects/project_info.php?projectID=100401

~ INCREASE IN WHALE DEATHS IN GULF OF ALASKA, SEPT. 2015 

http://smdp.com/increase-whale-deaths-gulf-alaska/151010

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/health/mmume/large_whales_2015.html


~ UNUSUAL MORTALITY EVENT (UME) FOR ALASKAN PINNIPEDS, 2012
http://climatechange.alaska.gov/docs/cehh_16apr12_AJensen.pdf

DEATH BY TOXIC ALGAE RULED OUT.
DEATH BY PSP (Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning) RULED OUT.

Tests for common known viral pathogens (poxvirus,herpesvirus, papillomavirus,morbillivirus,calicivirus) have been NEGATIVE.


~  Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Events
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/health/mmume/events.html

ALMOST ALL UME HAD "NO KNOWN CAUSE/UNDETERMINED" AS A RESULT OF ALLEGED TESTING BY NOAA.
NOAA MUST REALLY, REALLY SUCK IN THE TESTING DEPARTMENT.
MAYBE SOME INDEPENDENT LAB SHOULD DO THEIR TESTING!

~ New York Times, Jan 15, 2015: A team of scientists… has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them. “We may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,” said Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an author of the new research, which was published on Thursday in the journal Science.