Loose Feathers #270

Cold Perch / Photo by Chris Williamson

Birds and birding news

• At least 150 Brown Pelicans have been found dead or wounded along the east coast of North Carolina. Many of the birds appear to be shot or decapitated.
• Mariana crows (Corvus kubaryi) are likely to be extinct in 75 years without intervention to increase their breeding success.
• Two research papers argue for culling Canada Geese on Vancouver Island to reduce their impact on estuaries and marshes.
• One group of biologists in Washington is using trained dogs to find Northern Spotted Owls. The dogs can detect the scent of pellets or feces.
• Seabirds have been starving to death near New Zealand due to La Nina climate patterns that affect their food sources. Dead birds have included Little Blue Penguins (Eudyptula minor), Australasian Gannets (Morus serrator), Sooty Shearwaters (Puffinus griseus), and Grey-faced Petrels (Pterodroma macroptera).
• One Australian species and five subspecies are now considered extinct.
• Vulture populations around the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya have dropped 60% in the last three decades.
• A rodenticide is working its way through the food web and killing many of Canada's Barn Owls.

Birds in the blogosphere

• Mike's Birding and Digiscoping Blog: One for the Record Books!
• Nervous Birds: Maryland Birding Community Wins GOLD!
• The Birdcouple: Another Maryland rarity - Golden-Crowned Sparrow
• eBird Birding News and Features: New Yard and Patch Games
• Tails of Birding: LBJs - IDs for 5 & 6
• March of the Fossil Penguins: Exaptations in Action – A Warm Origin for a Cool Structure in Penguin Wings

Oil spill

• The Washington Post has an interactive graphic showing how one bird was oiled, cleaned, and rehabilitated.
• Time asks what happened to the Gulf oil spill.
• Bouchard Transportation will pay a $6 million settlement for an oil spill in Buzzard Bay, Massachusetts.
• Coral reefs in the Gulf of Mexico remain slimed with oil residue, which kills corals.
• Spilled oil is still evident in Louisiana's coastal marshes, through dead vegetation and subsurface residue.
• Diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show that BP came close to a major oil disaster in the Caspian Sea a few months before the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Like in the Gulf of Mexico incident, the platform in the Caspian Sea suffered a gas leak due to faulty cement work.

Environment and biodiversity

• Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona) argues for giving the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge national monument status.
• The National Wildlife Federation lists its top 12 wildlife stories of 2010.
• According to a recent study, the Chesapeake Bay is rising half as fast as global sea levels, but local land subsidence makes up the difference.
• Genetic research shows that there are two species of African elephants, the savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana) and the forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis). The study also sequenced DNA from Asian elephants, woolly mammoths, and American mastodons.
• Congress passed a shark conservation bill this week to reduce the shark fin trade off the West Coast. The bill bans transporting shark fins without their carcasses attached.

Carnivals

• House of Herps #13
• An Inordinate Fondness #11