Where have all the birds gone? Not to Candaba

Updated Jan 25
January 26, 2011 CANDABA, Pampanga—The number of birds flying south to important wintering grounds in the Philippines has fallen sharply this year, with experts saying the dramatic demise of wetlands and hunting are to blame.

Despite some harsh, cold weather across the Eurasian landmass, some waterbirds that usually migrate in huge flocks to the tropical islands have been completely absent, said Philippine-based Danish ornithologist Arne Jensen.

Massive Bird Deaths in Taiwan

Taichung County, Taiwan
Updated Jan 17
Jan. 8, 2011

China Taiwan News Online January 8 across the United States has recently appeared more than wild birds and river fish mass die-off event, but potential in mountainous areas in Taichung County, 7 also found that more than 100 wild birds died suddenly, at the initial vaccination Taichung Animal Protection rule out avian influenza, and collected samples and sent to the Taiwan authorities, "the Council of Agriculture," Animal Health Research Institution for Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute tests, hoping to clarify the cause of death.

Google Mass Animal Death...

Please follow this link...

Click on the balloons in the map....

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=214033381917754770249.00049a0687a13e7bf2bc8&z=2


View 2011 Mass Animal Death* in a larger map

Actually, Millions of Dead Jellyfish

Please follow this link.

http://www.lifesacoast.com/actually-millions-of-dead-jellyfish/

a MILLION or more jellyfish DEAD! February 8, 2011 - EAST COAST of Flo...

Animals Dying in FLorida

JUST IN (February 11, 2011.. Hundreds of dead birds discovered in Lake Charles)

http://www.kplctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=14005986

JUST IN (February 9, 2011 Thousands Of Dead Fish Wash Ashore In Florida)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/07/thousands-of-dead-fish-wa_n_819725.html

JUST IN (February 8, 2011. Hundreds of sparrows fall dead in Rotorua)

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/hundreds-sparrows-fall-dead-in-rotorua-4018881

JUST IN! (February 8, 2011 A MILLION or more jellyfish DEAD, TODAY! February 8, 2011 - EAST COAST of Florida) 

NOW after reading here is the type of thing that really GETS ME wondering!

LOL look at what this paragraph actually says and no one ever looks into this thing

notice where it says in the same location ! ROFL !

.........That is not a coincident.........

that story is located here at this website 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/07/thousands-of-dead-fish-wa_n_819725.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notice what i highlight in red bold letters

Thousands of dead fish washed ashore a Florida state park beach on Friday, WPBF 25 News reports. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission biologists believe a lack of oxygen resulted in the deaths of thousands of menhaden fish at Sebastian Inlet State Park. The officials say this type of fish is especially prone to dying from a lack of oxygen when they swim closer to shore in such large numbers.

In the week prior, around 500 drum fish were found dead in the Arkansas River, in the same location where 83,000 dead fish were discovered a month earlier on December 29th, AP reports.

After the major fish kill at the end of 2010, and the 

The Plight of the Bumblebee

ISIS Report 11/02/11

######################

Major pollinators apart from the honeybee are suffering steep decline worldwide, 
chief among them the bumblebee, and neonicotinoid pesticides are a major culprit 
that should be banned Prof. Joe Cummins

There has been a  huge amount written about the  decline of the honeybee,  Apis 
mellifera , but relatively scant attention has been paid  to other important 
pollinators that have also been affected simultaneously, in particular,  the 
bumblebee, Bombus terrestris, which has been experiencing a precipitous global 
decline. The bumble bee, an important pollinator, has received much less 
attention than the honeybee because the bumblebee does not produce  marketable 
quantities of honey.

Is the bumblebee doomed?

As early as six years ago, there was clear evidence that the bumblebee was in 
deep trouble in North America.  A survey of bumblebee species reached the 
following conclusion [1]: “The bumblebee subgenus Bombus is represented by five 
species in North America. Of these, one, B. franklini, may be extinct, and two 
others, the western B. occidentalis and the eastern B. affinis, appear to be in 
steep decline. For all of these species, habitat loss and degradation and 
extensive pesticide use are threats faced daily. However, circumstantial 
evidence indicates that the principal cause for these population declines is the 
introduction of exotic disease organisms and pathogens via trafficking in 
commercial bumblebee queens and colonies for greenhouse pollination of 
tomatoes.”

In 2009 the decline in Midwestern North American bumblebee was documented and 
large scale agricultural intensification implicated as the cause [2]. A 2010 
report showed that the relative abundances of four species have declined by up 
to 96 percent and that their geographic ranges contracted by 23–87 percent 
within the last 20 years [3]. It also showed that declining populations have 
significantly higher infection levels of the microsporidian pathogen Nosema 
bombi and lower genetic diversity compared with co-occurring populations of the 
stable (non-declining) species. It concluded [3]: “Higher pathogen prevalence 
and reduced genetic diversity are, thus, realistic predictors of these alarming 
patterns of decline in North America, although cause and effect remain 
uncertain.” 

A number of causes have been put forward for the decline of the bumble bee, 
these include intensification of land use, introduction of pathogen-bearing 
bees, pathogens from honey bees, inbreeding, and exposure to pesticides.  Before 
discussing those causes, I describe the lifestyle of the bumblebee. 

Lifestyle of the bumble bee

The bumblebee may look like a large economy-sized honeybee, but it has a 
distinctly different lifestyle [4]. Most species live in small colonies, usually 
underground, often in an old mouse hole. The queen lays her eggs in a hollow 
nest of moss or grass at the beginning of the season. The larvae are fed on 
pollen and honey, and develop into workers. All the bees die at the end of the 
season except fertilized females, which hibernate and produce fresh colonies in 
the spring. Bumblebees form colonies. These colonies are usually much less 
extensive than those of honeybees. This is due to a number of factors including: 
the small physical size of the nest cavity, a single female is responsible for 
the initial construction and reproduction that happens within the nest; and the 
restriction of the colony to a single season (in most species). Often, mature 
bumblebee nests will hold fewer than 50 individuals. Bumblebee nests may be 
found within tunnels in the ground made by other animals, or in tussock grass. 
Bumblebees sometimes construct a wax canopy (“involucrum”) over the top of their 
nest for protection and insulation. Bumblebees do not often preserve their nests 
through the winter, though some tropical species live in their nests for several 
years (and their colonies can grow quite large, depending on the size of the 
nest cavity). In temperate species, the last generation of summer includes a 
number of queens that overwinter separately in protected spots. 

The queens can live up to one year, possibly longer in tropical species. 
Bumblebee nests are first constructed by over-wintered queens in the spring (in 
temperate areas). Upon emerging from hibernation, the queen collects pollen and 
nectar from flowers and searches for a suitable nest site. The characteristics 
of the nest site vary among bumblebee species, with some species preferring to 
nest in underground holes and others in tussock grass or directly on the ground. 
Once the queen has found a site, she prepares wax pots to store food, and wax 
cells into which eggs are laid. These eggs then hatch into larvae, which cause 
the wax cells to expand isometrically into a clump of brood cells.

After the first or second group of workers emerge, they take over the task of 
foraging and the queen spends most of her time laying eggs and caring for 
larvae. The colony grows progressively larger and at some point will begin to 
produce males and new queens. The point at which this occurs varies among 
species and is heavily dependent on resource availability and other 
environmental factors. Unlike the workers of more advanced social insects, 
bumblebee workers are not reproductively sterile and are able to lay haploid 
eggs (with one set of chromosomes) that develop into viable male bumble bees. 
Only fertilized queens can lay diploid eggs (with two sets of chromosomes) that 
mature into workers and new queens. New queens and males leave the colony after 
maturation. Males in particular are forcibly driven out by the workers. Away 
from the colony, the new queens and males live off nectar and pollen and spend 
the night on flowers or in holes. The queens are eventually mated, often more 
than once, and search for suitable location for diapause (dormancy). 

Bumblebees generally visit flowers that form recognizable groups according to 
pollinator type. They can visit patches of flowers up to 1–2 kilometers from 
their colony. Bumblebees will also tend to visit the same patches of flowers 
every day, as long as nectar and pollen continue to be available, a habit known 
as pollinator or flower constancy. While foraging, bumblebees can reach ground 
speeds of up to 15 metres per second (54 km/h). Once they have collected nectar 
and pollen, they return to the nest and deposit the harvested nectar and pollen 
into brood cells, or into wax cells for storage. Unlike honey bees, bumblebees 
only store a few days’ worth of food and so are much more vulnerable to food 
shortage.

Land use

The decline of bumblebee worldwide was brought to light when the impact of 
particular land use practices was deemed to require fuller study to pinpoint 
those practices that would benefit the survival of the bumblebee [5].  Organic 
farming practices increased bumblebee species richness over conventional farming 
practices [6].

Read the rest of this article on the ISIS website
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Plight_of_the_Bumblebee.php

Or find out more details about disappearing bees
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/disappearingBees.php
========================================================
This article can be found on the I-SIS website at
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Plight_of_the_Bumblebee.php

All new articles are also announced on our RSS feed
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/feed.xml

ISIS website is now archived by the British Library as part of UK national 
documentary heritage