Starvation behind mass death in Wellington

 New Zealand in hot water: the plight of the little blue penguins

Starvation behind mass death 

of little blue penguin chicks

Warmer waters and sediment has caused 35 percent of little blue penguin chicks to die in Wellington.

Little Blue Penguin in it's nesting box in Wellington. Photo: Supplied

Radio NZ,

28 January, 2021

After a what was a successful nesting season, 66 baby penguins from Matiu / Somes Island died of starvation during a horror couple of weeks in November.

The season ended with a total loss of 82 chicks, 35 percent of the babies hatched this year.

Matiu / Somes is a predator-free Island in the heart of Wellington Harbour, and home to a usually thriving colony of Little Blue Penguins, or kororā.

But this season, it was a different story.

Penguin expert, and advocate - Mike Rumble surveys the island every two weeks with a team of volunteers to check the 600-to-800 penguins it's home to.

During a routine visit in November, he and the team came across a horrifying sight.

"The number involved was very high ... and it was all dead chicks in nest boxes and clearly something had gone wrong."

Over three weeks they lost 66 chicks, 54 of them found on one day alone.

"It wasn't always both chicks in the nest.

"Sometimes it was only one of two, and of course the problem we then had to do was try and work out what was going on."

From there Rumble looked to the water, curious to find out what had caused the mass casualty.

"I had this perfect view of both sides of Matiu / Somes Island and one of the things I saw was what we call silting lines.

"The lines of whatever it was coming out of Hutt River was coming down both sides of the island so we knew immediately there was a serious problem."

Mike Rumble believed a heavy downpour of rain and some stormwater overflow contributed to the silt.

sixty-six penguin chicks died. Photo: Supplied / Anna Gadsby

His suspicions were confirmed when the pathology results for one of the dead penguins came back - starvation was part of the problem.

These Little Blue Penguins were the canary in the coal mine when things weren't right and they were warning us about climate change, Rumble said.

"The little penguins rely on small fish which stay down at the sea floor in the cold currents and if the harbour temperature rises, as it clearly must have, those cold currents don't come up, they stay down which means the birds have got to work harder and things get very difficult for them when there is silting at the same time because they can't see the food that they're hunting for."

The parent penguins, go out to fish before returning home to feed the chicks, but if they can't get enough they won't - or they have to make the call to only feed one of their babies, he said.

In total they lost 82 out of 260 penguin chicks for the nesting season.

It was normal for about 11 percent of the chicks to die in a seasons but Rumble said this year's loss was sitting at 35 percent.

"The end result 2021 is 65 percent fledge rate, a massive drop. It could be a long-term effect hopefully eased a bit by the fact that whatever was causing the problem disappeared.

"It will still impact on what happens in the next two or three seasons."

Little Blue Penguin chicks hunker down in their box. Photo: Supplied

He said fewer birds would return for breeding, which will continue to harm the numbers of the colony.

Rumble had asked the Department of Conservation to do a full-scale audit into penguin losses this season to see if the problem was more widespread.

But he was thankful for the penguin parents, because there were more eggs at the start of the season, meaning there were higher chick numbers overall, which would combat some of the impact of the huge loss.

“Sea otters are an amazing indicator of what’s happening in the coastal environment, not just to other marine animals, but to us, too, especially on the issue of domoic acid,” said Christine K. Johnson, director of the EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics in the One Health Institute at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and senior author of the study.

 The world’s ocean temperatures in 2020 were the third highest on record, and each of the past five years have been the ocean’s hottest years on record.

The study found that exposure to domoic acid increased a sea otter’s risk of dying with heart disease 1.7-fold. The risk is up to 2.5 times greater for otters consuming a high proportion of crab and clam, which accumulate domoic acid in their tissues, helping it persist in the food web. Additionally, the researchers discovered that domoic acid exposure is especially detrimental for prime-age adult sea otters, whose survival is vital for population growth.

“That’s worrisome for the long-term population recovery of southern sea otters, which are a threatened species,” said lead author Megan Moriarty, a wildlife veterinarian who conducted this research for her Ph.D. in epidemiology at UC Davis. “This study emphasises that domoic acid is a threat that isn’t going away. It’s a food web toxin and is pretty pervasive.”

https://www.oceanographicmagazine.com/news/algal-blooms-sea-otters/

Discussing about climate change and New Zealand's marine life

 New Zealand in hot water: the plight of the little blue penguins

Seemorerocks interviews Pam Crisp, a conservation educator based in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Pam is programme manager for Seaweek, NZ's annual marine engagement event, and active in her local community through Transition Towns Lower Hutt

Dane Wigington chronicling the sudden death of frogs in Northern California

 Dane is a real conservationist, not a keyboard one.

Into The Wild, With Dane Wigington, September 16, 2020, #2 (Geoengineering Watch)

Into The Wild, With Dane Wigington, September 10, 2020 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/16/birds-falling-out-of-the-sky-in-mass-die-off-in-south-western-us-aoe

Nearly 3 BILLION animals dies in the Australia fires

Against this tragedy almost nothing else matters.

Nearly three billion animals were killed or displaced by Australia's devastating wildfires in 2019 and 2020, according to a new report, with experts calling it "one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history".

The study, released on Tuesday by scientists from several Australian universities, said 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds, 143 million mammals and 51 million frogs were harmed in the blazes that ripped through the country.

While the report did not say how many animals died directly because of the fires, the prospects for those that escaped the flames "were probably not great" due to a lack of food, shelter and protection from predators, said author Chris Dickman, a professor in ecology at the University of Sydney.

The fires ravaged more than 115,000 square kilometres (44,400 square miles) of drought-stricken bushland and forest across Australia in late 2019 and early 2020, killing more than 30 people and destroying thousands of homes.

It was the broadest and most prolonged bushfire season in modern Australian history, with scientists attributing the severity of the crisis to the impacts of climate change.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/3-billion-animals-killed-displaced-australia-fires-200728095756845.html?fbclid=IwAR3TnHeR8OpJi4n732UmbQwKmzXRwDsYXphvBtYPwr9ab2lwZg6TOKcWMTA

The Australian bushfires: one of the worst or largest animal disasters in history since the ice age

"To give it some context, the Australian fires [are] probably one of the worst or largest animal disasters in history since the ice age,"

Kiwi volunteers jump the 
ditch to help fire-affected
Australian animals

NZHerald,

12 January, 2020

Animals fleeing the devastating Australian bushfires were like a tsunami, a New Zealand volunteer rescuing wildlife in New South Wales says.

There are fears some of Australia's native species – like the Kangaroo Island dunnart – may even become extinct because of the fires.

Six volunteers - a veterinarian, emergency managers, animal control officers and military paramedics - from Animal Evac New Zealand have flown to New South Wales to help with the rescue. 

The trust specialises in animal evacuation in disaster situations and has been stationed in Bundanoon, south west of Sydney.

Animal Evac founder Steve Glassey, who is the former chief executive of Wellington SPCA, told RNZ's The Weekend the conditions had been extraordinarily challenging.

"To give it some context, the Australian fires [are] probably one of the worst or largest animal disasters in history since the ice age," Glassey said.

"There are so many hundreds of thousands, millions, maybe close to a billion animals that have perished in this disaster, so it's an extremely challenging event for the government of Australia. It's probably also the first time that the Australians have had to entertain international disaster response for animal welfare, so that in itself is a challenge and the New South Wales government is doing a doing a great job with the fire response as well."

Glassey described finding the animals as like looking for a needle in a haystack.

"One of the things that the team is, I think, sort of struggling with is the fact that we know there are millions of animals out there and we go out there to rescue animals and we may sort of be able to find or locate a few and you sort of think 'well are we making a dent in this?' But the reality is that we might not be able to save the world, but we can hopefully make a difference here."

On the first day there, the team - whose trip to Australia was supported by SAFE New Zealand - was based in the Blue Mountains with a local animal welfare agent who was licensed to use a tranquilliser gun to rescue kangaroos trying to flee the area.

Glassey said the team came across a number of dead kangaroos during their search, but they were able to help some of the injured.

"Most of them stayed reasonably sort of still, probably in more of a pain and panic state.

"It was like they were actually wanting us to help them rather than just flee. So by having a bit of safe distance we've been able to use experts with tranquilliser guns to immobilise them, chemically immobilise, and then we can approach the animal and treat it."

Images shared on social media has shown the cost to wildlife the fires have had, with estimates in the hundreds of millions possibly dead.

Glassey said the images he had seen looked like a tsunami of animals running away from the fire front.

"Sometimes the fires can be so fast those animals are all moving out and are in a large surge, but if there is boundary fencing they just get caught up against it and unfortunately perish."

He said he had heard stories from people who had fled to the coast and taken refuge in the sea.

"They had to endure listening to the koalas that had fled the bush coming down to the beach line, they heard those koalas were screaming for help. Most people that were taking safe refuge in the water couldn't do anything apart from listen to those cries for help.

"That's why we're here, we're here to make sure that those koalas and kangaroos that have been affected by this catastrophic event have trained experts on the ground to help them. We have exhausted our financial resources, we would love to send another or larger contingent of specialists from New Zealand to this event. But we can only do that if we get the support of New Zealand and other donors to make that happen.

Glassey said, at this point, there was no end in sight.

"Look, it's absolutely devastating, this is an absolutely catastrophic event and the fires are still going and they'll continue to go for days if not longer.

"That means that there are still going to be animals that are going to be impacted. On the bright side, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service and the partner agencies, they've done a fantastic job providing really good, clear information for people to make sure the animals have been kept safe. So in terms of companion animals and stock, they're not as impacted as what the wildlife are."

Glassey said even when the fires were extinguished, the rehabilitation process for animals would be ongoing.

"That demand for world-wide rehabilitation is certainly there and it's been there for the last few months as the earlier fires stepped up.

"So yes they're going to need resources for that and there are organisations in Australia that are certainly helping with that. The challenge is ... how do we bring those animals out for those organizations to care when there is potentially a deficiency in trained responders that have the fire safety training and the experience to go onto a fire ground with the confidence of the local authorities.

"The issue is that there are people that wanted to go in and come over and deploy that don't have the training for this. And unfortunately, that's creating a secondary disaster for authorities and the sense that the overwhelming amount of spontaneous volunteers potentially distract them from being able to help and mobilise legitimate animal rescue organizations that are accredited."

Glassey said the fires in Australia were a timely reminder for New Zealanders about possibility of it happening here, especially after the Nelson fires at the start of 2019.

"I think that unless we start preparing in New Zealand, this could be us in times to come and it highlights the importance of emergency planning, funding and co-ordination to make sure there's resource, capacity, training and collaboration within New Zealand to make sure we can be one step ahead of these kinds of disasters."

- RNZ

https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/118613872/australian-bushfires-dead-animals-line-the-road-in-rural-nsw-town

From 2015

Almost 700 Victorian koalas killed in secret cull

https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/worldtoday/almost-700-victorian-koalas-killed-in-secret-cull/6280158

500 MILLI0N animals feared dead in Australian bushfires

Nearly 500 million animals 

killed in Australian 

bushfires, experts fear

Evening Standard,

27 December, 2019

Around 480 million animals are feared to have died in the bushfires sweeping Australia, including nearly a third of the koalas in New South Wales's main habitat.

Ecologists at the University of Sydney estimate around 480 million mammals, birds and reptiles have been killed, directly or indirectly, by the devastating blazes since they began in September, The Times reported.

This includes almost 8,000 koalas, which are believed to have burnt to death on the state’s mid-north coast.

The region, which lies around 240 miles north of Sydney, is home to the largest number of Australia’s koalas, with a population of up to 28,000.

Federal environment minister Sussan Ley told ABC "up to 30 per cent of the population in that region" may have been killed, because around 30 per cent of their habitat has been destroyed.

“We’ll know more when the fires have calmed down and a proper assessment can be made,” she added.

Nine people have died and hundreds of homes have been razed to the ground during the unprecedented bushfire season.

About four million hectares have been burnt in New South Wales alone.

As well as being one of Australia's most populous koala habitats, the mid-north coast region also houses one of the country's main koala hospitals.

Dedicated workers at the The Port Macquarie Koala Hospital reportedly treated 72 badly burnt animals on Christmas Day.

They were brought in after bushfires destroyed up to three quarters of their habitat, according to the clinical director Cheyne Flanagan.

“We have teams on roster for capture if any are in trouble and they are available 24 hours a day,” she told Reuters.

A Gofundme page for the hospital has received more than £1.6million ($2million AUD) since September - the largest single amount raised on the site in Australian history, website Newshub reported.

According to Mark Graham, an ecologist with the Nature Conservation Council, koalas “have no capacity to move fast enough to get away” from fires that spread from treetop to treetop.

“The fires have burnt so hot and so fast that there has been significant mortality of animals in the trees, but there is such a big area now that is still on fire and still burning that we will probably never find the bodies,” Mr Graham told a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry earlier this month.

“We’ve lost such a massive swathe of known koala habitat that I think we can say without any doubt there will be ongoing declines in koala populations from this point forward.”

The scorched regions include nature reserves in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and parts of the Gondwana rainforests — which have existed since the time of the dinosaurs and are the most extensive area of subtropical rainforest in the world.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7829667/Koala-flags-cyclist-sips-water-bottle-temperatures-soar-nearly-40C-Adelaide.html

Cattle have stopped breeding and koalas are dying of thirst in Australia

Cattle have stopped breeding, koalas die of thirst: A vet's hellish diary of climate change

SMH,

26 December, 2019

Bulls cannot breed at Inverell. They are becoming infertile from their testicles overheating. Mares are not falling pregnant, and through the heat, piglets and calves are aborting.

My work as a veterinarian has changed so much. While I would normally test bulls for fertility, or herds of cattle for pregnancy, I no longer do, because the livestock has been sold. A client’s stud stock in Inverell has reduced from 2000 breeders to zero.

I once assisted farmers who have spent their lives developing breeding programs, with historic bloodlines that go back 80 years. These stud farmers are now left with a handful of breeders that they can’t bear to part with, spending thousands keeping them fed, and going broke doing it.

Cattle that sold for thousands are now in the sale yards at $70 a head. Those classed as too skinny for sale are costing the farmer $130 to be destroyed.

They are all gone and it was all for nothing. The paddocks are bare, the dams dry, the grass crispy and brown. The whole region has been completely destocked and is devoid of life.

For 22 years, I have been the vet in this once-thriving town in northern NSW, which, as climate change continues to fuel extreme heat, drought and bushfires, has become hell on Earth.

Here, we are seeing extreme weather events like never before. The other day we had about eight centimetres of rain in 20 minutes. These downpours are like rain bombs. They are so ferocious that a farmer lost all of his fences, and all it did was silt up the dam so he had to use a machine to excavate the mud.

Most farmers in my district have not a blade of grass remaining on their properties. Topsoil has been blown away by the terrible, strong winds this spring and summer. We have experienced the hottest days that I can remember, and right now I can’t even open any windows because my eyes sting and lungs hurt from bushfire smoke.

For days, I have watched as the bushland around us went up like a tinderbox. I just waited for the next day when my clinic would be flooded with evacuated dogs, cats, goats and horses in desperate need of water and food.

The impact of the drought on wildlife is devastating to watch, too. Members of the public are bringing us koalas, sugar gliders, possums, galahs, cockatoos and kangaroos on a daily basis.

The koalas affect me the most. To see these gorgeous, iconic animals dying from thirst is too hard to bear. We save some, but we lose just as many.

The whole town is devastated. My business has halved. But with no horses to breed, no cattle to test and care for, what am I going to do? I have worked day and night to build a future for my family, but who would want to buy our property out here? Who would want to buy a vet clinic in a town where there are no animals to treat because it’s too hot and dry? Where the cattle become infertile from the 40-degree heat. All this on black, baked ground.

I am 53 years old. Can I start again?

Climate change for us is every day, and I am not suffering on the same level as my friends, my clients and the helpless animals I treat. As a veterinarian I am becoming more and more distressed, not just about the state of my town, but the whole world.

Personally, I have had weeks when I just cry. It just bloody hurts me. I also have times when I get really angry and I start to swear, which I have never done in my life.

I also have times when I think about the potential this country has to create a renewable future with clean, green energy, and end our reliance on fossil fuels.

EMISSIONS

'Too emotional, too hot': World's top energy chief laments Australia's climate debate

You only have to look at how resilient our farmers are in the face of devastating, extreme weather conditions to understand that we can make a powerful, meaningful difference to our future.

The government has no idea what it’s like for us. It has no empathy. Its members don't know how much it hurts when they just say yes to another coal mine.

I would invite Scott Morrison to come and see what life in Inverell is like. In case he chooses not to, I'll paint this picture for the country and hope people can start to realise and understand the devastating impact climate change is having. I hope they will take a stand for the people, the places and the animals whose voices are too small for him to hear.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7825757/Bushfires-Charred-corpse-koala-curled-ball-makes-fireys-cry.html

The forests are dead in NZ'sMt Aspiring National Park

WORKERS REPORT THAT 

NOTHING IS ALIVE NOW … 

NO BIRDS, NO INSECTS, 

NOTHING! … AT RECENTLY 

1080’D WILKIN RIVER 

VLLY, MT ASPIRING NTL 

PARK

Rangatikei Ecological Health Watch,

3 November, 2019

This is truly disturbing, especially on the heels of yesterday’s post and the revelations from the Taupo area where a hunter reports the same after SIXTY PLUS YEARS of 1080 treatment. The poison simply is not working, and worse it is decimating our native birds. Kea are nearing extinction (here also) and remember this post also about the 10K birds killed in one drop. When is this madness going to be looked at with independent eyes, independent research and an eye for alternatives. They are aerially treating areas that could be easily trapped while saying they only aerially treat inaccessible places.

Note: this post since published has had 14K shares on FB in one week (currently as at 12/11/19 it is 20K) … at which point the pro poisoners are responding with comments it is not true. The person who provided the info is 100% bonafide & reliable I can assure you. The truth is coming out. I encourage you, if you have similar ‘silent’ stories do contact me using the contact form…. the accumulation of other sightings provides more evidence that 1080 is not conserving our natives & is also killing our non natives. The latter is by design of course although DoC is not outright telling you that. The plan is to totally eliminate all non natives, part of the UN biodiversity insanity.

RELATED: NZ’s Silent Forests – Where have the Birds Gone? 
also: https://envirowatchrangitikei.wordpress.com/?s=birds+1080

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MAKARORA – THE AFTERMATH

By Carol Sawyer

The Makarora area of Mt Aspiring National Park was aerially 1080-poisoned on 15 October, 2019 – the Wilkin, Fish, Blue, Cameron, Makarora and Young Valleys.

Yesterday I was told that the old six-bunk forestry hut at Top Forks, Wilkin River Valley, is being restored, and the workers restoring it are living there while it is restored. They say there is absolutely nothing left alive up there. It is as silent as the grave…. no birds, no insects, NOTHING !

Extraordinarily, even though the area was poisoned only two weeks ago there are NO warning signs on any of the DoC online track information on the Young Valley Track, Cameron Valley Track, Blue-Young Valley Track, etc! There will be dead carcasses and baits in the streams and rivers. Innocent tourist trampers from overseas will drink from the streams.

https://www.doc.govt.nz/…/thin…/tracks/wilkin-valley-tracks/

https://www.doc.govt.nz/…/thi…/tracks/blue-young-link-track/

https://www.doc.govt.nz/…/thin…/tracks/cameron-valley-track/

*******************************************

‘Way-to-Go” helicopter crossing Makarora River during 1080 poison operation – Photo Carol Sawyer