Thursday, June 6, 2019

UNUSUAL MORTALITY EVENTS CONTINUE ON WEST COAST, THIS TIME, OVER 70 GRAY WHALES

THIS, AFTER NOAA CLOSED DOWN THE TWO SEPARATE UMEs IN 2018 AFTER 7 YEARS OF MASS DEATHS AMONG WHALES, WALRUSES AND SEALS/SEA LIONS.
"These UMEs have all been officially declared closed without a determination in what caused the events."
NOW WE HAVE A NEW ONE, WHICH IS ACTUALLY THE SAME ONE, WHICH HAS BEEN ONGOING SINCE 2011.


Scientists expect more whales to wash up dead.
"It's still early in the season for places like Washington, Canada and Alaska, so the numbers are just partial totals so far and the event is still very much ongoing," said John Calambokidis, a research biologist for Cascadia Research Collective.
The 70 stranded whales so far likely represent just 10% of the actual death toll, Calambokidis said.



"Most whales especially emaciated whales will tend to sink when dead. So the numbers that actually wash up do represent a fraction of the true numbers," John Calambokidis, a research biologist with the Cascadia Research Collective in Washington state, said on a conference call with reporters on Friday.
"A vast majority go unreported."

The population of gray whales was reduced by commercial whaling, but now they number around 27,000. They are still listed as a special concern under Canada's Species At Risk Act.



Biologists from the U.S. government have launched a special investigation into the deaths of over 75 gray whales that washed ashore the U.S. West Coast and Canada over the past few months, appearing abnormally thin and weak. The whales are reported having little body fat.

Most of them had not yet reached adulthood and looked like they might have starved to death.
“We are concerned because whales are an indicator species for the health of the ocean,” Dr. Padraig Duignan, chief pathologist at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito said. “We use them to tell us what’s happening out there.”

Gray whales travel to Alaska in the summer to consume the food necessary to survive the migration south towards Mexico and without the necessary nutrients it would be difficult to survive the trip.

So far this year, 37 dead gray whales have turned up in California waters, three in Oregon, 25 in Washington state and five in Alaska, say officials of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. Five more were found in British Columbia.

The most recent dead whale in Alaska was spotted last week near Chignik Bay on the Alaska peninsula.

Many have little body fat, leading experts to suspect the die-off is caused by declining food sources in the dramatically warming waters of the northern Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea off Alaska.


WARMING WATERS?
WELL, RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL BOILS WATER, ASK THOSE WHO RUN BOILING WATER REACTORS.

We know that radioactive water is continuing to flow into the Pacific Ocean from the site of three mangled reactors at a rate of around 2 billion Becquerels a day from at least 300 TONS, not gallons but TONS, of radioactive water every single day, according to a 2018 Japanese study, the Japan Times reported March 29, 2018.

[TEPCO'S FAILURE TO REMOVE TRITIUM FROM THE NUCLEAR PLANT'S WASTEWATER HAS  BEEN KNOWN AND UNADDRESSED SINCE 2014.
SEE <THIS>]

The conditions the whales encountered last summer (AND EVERY SUMMER SINCE 2011?) could be hurting the animals now as they make their annual migration north, said scientists.

BUT SOME DIED OUTSIDE THAT MIGRATORY TIME FRAME.
AND THEY DIED IN KNOWN RADIATION-CONTAMINATED WATERS.

Harrison, British Columbia, where some SOIL AND SALMON were found to be contaminated with radioactivity from Fukushima last March, is 4,600 miles from Fukushima.

Fukushima radiation hit the Arctic less than a week after the reactors blew up in 2011.
NOAA and USFWS declared an Alaska Northern Pinnipeds Usual Mortality Event (UME) in late winter of 2011.

ACTUAL DEBRIS FROM FUKUSHIMA BEGAN WASHING ASHORE HERE IN AMERICA IN 2012.
DO "SCIENTISTS" EXPECT US TO BELIEVE THAT THE RADIATION SOMEHOW POSTPONED THE TRIP?

“We are seeing lots of live gray whales in unusual areas, some of them clearly emaciated, trying to feed.”

INDIGENOUS TRIBES ALONG THE PACIFIC HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR 8 YEARS NOW! THE SAME APPLIES TO WALRUSES, POLAR BEARS, SEALS, SEA BIRDS, CRUSTACEANS, MOLLUSKS, SEA TURTLES, URCHINS AND MOST SPECIES OF 'COMMERCIAL' FISH.

WHALES ARE SENSITIVE CREATURES, QUITE AVERSE TO RADIATION AND CHEMICAL POLLUTION.
ALL TYPES OF WHALES HAVE BEEN REPORTED IN STRANGE PLACES, BUT THERE'S NO PLACE THEY CAN RUN TO TO ESCAPE "WHATEVER IS OUT THERE".
THAT RADIOACTIVE PLUME FROM FUKUSHIMA IN THE PACIFIC IS NOT GOING AWAY AS THE POWER PLANT KEEPS DUMPING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF TONS OF RADIOACTIVE WATER INTO THE PACIFIC EVERY SINGLE YEAR, 300 TONS PER DAY, MINIMUM.

Toxicologists have demonstrated for decades now that even at very low concentrations, tritium [AND ALL OTHER RADIONUCLIDES] causes cell death, mutations and chromosome breaks. Per dose, it is twice as damaging to our genetic makeup as x-rays and gamma rays

Once tritium travels up the food chain it becomes even more dangerous to life,” Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist and winner of the 2015 Rachel Carson prize, said. “When incorporated into animal or plant tissue and digested by humans, tritium can stay in the body for 10 years or more. Internally exposed individuals can expect to be chronically exposed to the toxic impacts of this carcinogen for years to come.”

A special concern with tritiated water is that, when ingested by pregnant women [OR PREGNANT WHALES AND OTHER MARINE MAMMALS] , it can pass through the placenta and affect the fetus.

“During this stage, the developing organism (the embryo and the fetus) is highly radiosensitive,” he added.

The London Telegraph reported last October (2018) that Japan’s “plan to release the approximately 1.09 million tons of water currently stored in 900 tanks … has triggered a fierce backlash from local residents and environmental organizations, as well as groups in South Korea and Taiwan fearful that radioactivity from the second-worst nuclear disaster in history might wash up on their shores.”

Greenpeace issued a report Jan. 22, 2019 condemning the plan, reminding the public that the owners/operators of Fukushima — Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) — admitted in 2018 that its waste water treatment system (the Advanced Liquid Processing System or ALPS) had failed.

“In late September [2018], Tepco was forced to admit that around 80% of the water stored at the Fukushima site still contains radioactive substances above legal levels…” the Telegraph said.

TEPCO has admitted for example that in several of the storage tanks, levels of deadly, long-lived strontium-90 are 20,000 times the allowable limit levels set by the government.

More dead whales are expected to wash ashore during the northward migration and the total of dead whales documented probably represents only a small fraction of those that have perished in the current episode, scientists said.

Marvin M. Lipman, M.D., Consumer Reports’ chief medical adviser has stated,
“But the effect of radiation is cumulative, and the more you’re exposed, the greater your cancer risk.”

WHAT IF YOU ARE EXPOSED 24 HOURS A DAY, 365 DAYS A YEAR FOR EIGHT LONG YEARS?

MARINE MAMMALS CANNOT LEAVE THE OCEANS.
THEY EAT FROM IT, SWIM IN IT, ARE BORN IN IT AND ARE DYING IN IT.


WE'RE TOLD THAT TWO FACTORS DETERMINE IMPACT FROM RADIATION ON A GIVEN POPULATION:
(1) INCREASED MORTALITY.
(2) DECREASED BIRTH RATE.

WHAT DO WE SEE IN WHALE AND OTHER OCEAN MAMMALS TODAY?
(1) INCREASED MORTALITY.
(2) DECREASED BIRTH RATE.

INCREASED MORTALITY IN HUNDREDS OF SPECIES, DECREASED BIRTH RATES IN HUNDREDS OF SPECIES EQUALS WHAT?

THERE IS A TERRIBLE STAGE MANY CANCER PATIENTS GO THROUGH JUST BEFORE THEY DIE, CALLED CACHEXIA, OR 'WASTING SYNDROME'.
THE PERSON IS DESPERATELY HUNGRY BUT JUST CANNOT EAT OR CANNOT KEEP EVEN LIQUID NUTRIENTS DOWN.
AND SO THEY STARVE.
I WATCHED MY SPOUSE GO THROUGH CACHEXIA. IT WAS MORE TERRIBLE THAN WORDS CAN EXPRESS.

DARE WE IMAGINE THAT WHALES AND OTHER MAMMALS ALSO DEVELOP CACHEXIA?

The study below shows that the two above-mentioned factors have happened and are still happening.

From the website http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X1530031X Journal of Environmental Radioactivity Volume 148, October 2015, Pages 92–110:

IN THIS SAME TIME FRAME AS THE NEW MASS WHALE DIE-OFF, THESE 'MASS DEATHS EVENTS'...


June 12, 2019, Alaskan Fisheries Responding to Multiple Dead Ice Seals in Bering Sea Region. At least 60 dead seals have been reported so far.  

-28th May 2019 - 100 dead leopard sharks washed up in San Francisco Bay, California, America. Link

-25th May 2019 - Hundreds of sea birds found dead along the coast of Mendocino, California, America. Link

-8th April 2019 - 109 dead turtles wash up on Bonfil Beach in Mexico. Link

-16th March 2019 - 20 dolphins found dead on the coast of Mejillones, Chile. Link

-14th March 2019 - Thousands of dead fish wash up in a lagoon in New South Wales, Australia. Link

-12th February 2019 - Thousands of dead cuttlefish wash up on a beach in Chile. Link

-5th February 2019 - Mass die off of fish wash ashore on a beach in Rockingham, Australia. Link

-28th January 2019 - Thousands of dead fish found washed up in Amador, Panama. Link

I TRIED NOT TO LIST THE SAME SPECIES TWICE, BUT THIS IS BY NO MEANS EVEN 1/6TH OF THE REPORTED DIE-OFFS IN THE PACIFIC THIS YEAR ALONE.

THE POINT IS THAT THIS IS GLOBAL AND INVOLVES ALMOST EVERY MARINE SPECIES ON EARTH FROM CRUSTACEANS TO BIRDS TO DOLPHINS, FOOD FISH, TO ALL  SPECIES OF WHALES.

IT'S CONVENIENT AND SO EASY TO BLAME IT ALL ON "GLOBAL WARMING", BUT THE EVIDENCE POINTS TO A MORE VICIOUS COMMON DENOMINATOR AND I MAINTAIN THAT THAT DENOMINATOR IS A BUILDUP OF RADIATION IN THE WORLD'S OCEANS.

This is NOT due to global warming, chemtrails, HAARP, chupacabras, NASA, Trump or reptilians. It is caused by Fukushima radiation leaking into the Pacific. 

WHEN WE GO FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE MARINE FOOD CHAIN TO THE TOP, ALL ARE SHOWING SOME DISTINCCT FUKUSHIMA RADIATION, AND IT BIO-ACCUMULATES ALL THE WAY UP THAT CHAIN.

EVEN THE D.O.E. ADMITS THAT THEY EXPECT CONTINUING RADIATION TO AFFECT MARINE LIFE:

Approximately 80 per cent of the INITIAL Fukushima fallout happened over the Pacific Ocean. 
Department of Energy: Biological Monitoring at Amchitka Appears to Show Impacts from Fukushima Dai-ichi Incident.
" The U.S. Department of Energy Office Legacy Management (LM) has a long-term stewardship mission to protect human health and the environment...
Because the Amchitka 2011 sampling event occurred soon after the Fukushima nuclear accident, the biota impacted by atmospheric precipitation showed the greatest impact (e.g., species that live in freshwater or shallow ocean waters) when compared to marine biota living in deeper water. This is because ocean currents are a slower transport process than wind currents. LM scientists anticipate that the marine biota will show the impacts of Fukushima during the next sampling event, currently scheduled to occur in 2016.

FIVE YEARS LATER, 2016, SAME D.O.E. REPORTED THAT,
 "The radioactivity continues to spread in the marine environment.
Benthic fish, those at the bottom of the ocean, are more exposed to contaminated sediments and receive higher dose rates than pelagic fish living in the higher levels of the water column."
[SEE: Integr Environ Assess Manag 2016;12:654–658. © 2016 SETAC.]

AND WHAT HAPPENS EVERY TIME THAT SEDIMENT IS STIRRED UP BY STORMS, QUAKES, ETC?

NOT UNTIL/UNLESS THEY STOP FUKUSHIMA FROM LEAKING CAN WE HOPE TO SEE ANYTHING DIFFERENT.

CAN IT BE STOPPED IN TIME?
WE MUST WAIT AND SEE...AND WATCH WHALES DIE.









____________________________________


Postscript:
Who remembers these fleeting headlines from just 2014?

-"ABC: “Greatest nuclear contamination of the ocean in history… it can’t be quantified… it’s a global issue”

-CNN: “Problem from hell at Fukushima” — Tons of ‘highly radioactive’ liquid pouring out of Reactor 2 each day.

-"Huge increase in dead and sick sea mammals on California coast,  Unprecedented numbers, annual record broken in 7 months.

- Sea lion pups starving, drooling,  suffering seizures.

- Sea lions ‘mysteriously’ vanishing on other side of Pacific. Experts: We don’t know what’s happening

- Sea stars decimated on West Coast — SoCal ravaged as mystery disease spreads south; Saw hundreds of stars whikle diving last year, now none… got hit really hard — Mortality event like this never before documented.

- Millions of fish found dead on California coast — 3 major fish kills in 2 weeks. Police clear out beach, call health officials to investigate.

-Gov’t Expert: Plutonium is certainly being discharged into Pacific Ocean from Fukushima plant; Flowing out of ruptured containments.

- Fukushima responsible for “largest-ever” amount of radioactive pollution.

REMEMBER THE UME OF SUMMER, 2011, THE MANY NECROPSIES OF HUNDREDS OF DEAD SEA CREATURES?
NOAA REFUSES TO IDENTIFY THE CAUSE OF THAT, EVEN THROUGH CANADIAN RESEARCHERS EARLY-ON STATED IT WAS FROM THEIR BEING ON THE ICE WHEN FUKUSHIMA RADIATION HIT THE FAR NORTHERN ICE PACK. THE UME FOR WALRUSES AND SEVERAL TYPES OF SEALS WAS DECLARED OVER IN 2018! SEVEN YEARS OF MASS DEATHS!

"Despite remarkable sampling and reporting efforts by coastal communities throughout western and northern Alaska, an international team of researchers were unable to determine what caused the condition. A broad spectrum of possible causes for the disease was investigated, including viral, bacterial, fungal, harmful algal blooms, radiation, toxic, and environmental causes. The investigation included researchers from Alaska Veterinary Pathology Services, North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management, University of Alaska Fairbanks Alaska Sea Grant, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Alaska SeaLife Center, the University of Florida, Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Athens (Georgia) Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, and Columbia University.

The minimum estimate of the total number of impacted seals was 657 seals, which included 179 subsistence hunted seals, 233 dead stranded seals, and 245 live seals that stranded or were sampled during permitted health assessments studies. The total number of affected ice seals from 2011-2016 remains unknown due to the remote nature and large geographic area that ice seals inhabit.

Although some seals are still being observed with some of the symptoms (e.g., hair loss), the high levels of mortality, which was a primary consideration under which the UME was declared, are not occurring like they were in 2011, and the other symptoms are seen at lesser rates than at the peak of the UME. As such, the conditions under which the UME was declared are no longer applicable, and the Working Group made the decision to close the UME in June 2018."

AND TODAY?
BARELY A WHISPER, IN ANY MAINSTREAM MEDIA AT ALL.

WHY?
SO WE DON'T BEGIN TO IMAGINE THAT WE WILL BE NEXT AND "PANIC", MAYBE STORM JAPAN AND ALL NUKE PLANTS, DEMAND THEY SHUT THEM DOWN FOREVER.

I AM OLD, TIRED, BATTLING CANCER YET AGAIN BUT I AM SICKER OF THE DAMNED COVER-UP.








//WW

1 comment:

  1. FOR A LIST OF ONGOING AND CLOSED UMEs, SEE https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-life-distress/active-and-closed-unusual-mortality-events

    ReplyDelete