(Oct 30) Oyster season opened Oct. 1. Oystermen in Florida have reported pulling up dead oysters from beds that had been filled with large, healthy oysters at the end of the last harvest season on June 30. “We’re finding very few alive,” Pasco Gibson, a main supplier of the East Bay oysters, told the Pensacola News Journal. “This time of the year, we should be catching 500 to 1,000 pounds per boat a day. We’re not even catching a hundred pounds.”Read more HERE.
(Oct 28) In October, 14 dead dolphins have washed ashore in Mississippi and Alabama, bringing the number lost since the BP oil spill to more than 400. Read more HERE.
(Oct 27) For the first time ever, scientists have uncovered the presence of infectious salmon anemia, a deadly virus that has devastated farmed fish in Chile and in wild salmon populations on the West Coast. (Source)
(Oct 24) The Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the Illinois EPA are investigating the source of a major fish kill along the Little Wabash River in White County. The stretch of river where the kill has been noticed is around 30 miles. All species of fish are being found dead. The kill does not appear to affect just fish with scales. Catfish are also being found dead. Read more HERE.
(Oct 23) Thousands of dead birds have mysteriously appeared along the shores of Georgian Bay, “Read more HERE
(Oct 20) About 2000 fish have died in a north Queensland drain in Australia. The fish, mainly tilapia, were found dead in a man-made drain that flows into Louisa Creek at Blakeys Crossing in Townsville. Read more HERE.
(Oct 22) Hundreds of birds and fish washed up on the shores of Georgian Bay near Wasaga Beach in Ontario, Canada. Police say that the wildlife is scattered along a nearly three-kilometre stretch north of Wasaga Beach. Read more HERE.
(Oct 19) Hundreds of dead fish have been found along a several mile stretch of Brier Creek in Burke and Southern Richmond counties, in Georgia. Read more HERE.
(Oct 18) Bird and fish die-off reported on Georgian Bay, Ontario in Canada. About 120 dead sturgeons have been disposed to date. Dead channel catfish, freshwater drum, carp, lake whitefish and one largemouth bass have also been reported. Dead waterfowl have included loons, mallards, grebes, terns, mergansers, gulls, cormorants and Canada geese. In total, more than 300 dead birds have been reported. Read more HERE.
(Oct 17) A Myrtle Beach hotel was the scene of another bird death mystery as 30-40 of them fell dead from the sky. Read more HERE.
(Oct 14) Dead fish, disoriented birds, and discolored water are signaling the Texas coast’s largest red tide bloom in a decade, with concentrations of the Karenia brevis organism appearing in patches from Galveston down to South Padre Island. Fish kills have since been reported along the middle and lower coast, affecting all sizes and species, as well as two green sea turtles. Read more HERE.
(Oct 14) Red tide, fish kills hit Southwest Florida beaches on the shorelines of Cayo Costa, Cabbage Key, and Ussepa Island. Read more HERE.
(Oct 13) A mysterious disease, possibly a virus, has killed hundreds of ring seals along Alaska’s coast, according to local and federal agencies. The diseased seals have been beaching themselves on the Arctic coastline since July with numbers picking up in subsequent months. Read more HERE.
(Oct 13) A large wandering albatross is among the latest victims in the soaring wildlife death toll caused by oil pollution from the stricken Rena off Tauranga’s coast. Cold weather has worsened the effects of the oil on seabirds. Many penguins, petrels and shearwaters have frozen to death because the oil blocked their ability to insulate themselves against cold. As much as 385 of 1,879 tons of heavy fuel oil has already escaped and authorities have warned people off the beaches and told them not to eat seafood from the area. Read more HERE.
(Oct 12) A dead 11-foot pilot whale washed ashore at Head of the Meadow Beach in North Truro, Massachusetts. Another pilot whale washed ashore and died on Duxbury Beach the day before.
(Oct 12) Scores of dead juvenile Coho, Chum and Cutthroat Trout were spotted along a stretch of Cougar Creek in British Columbia, Canada. Read more HERE.
(Oct 11) A total of 2,356 birds have died as a result of an avian botulism outbreak at the Six Man Club south of Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada. (Source)
(Oct 7) Nearly 2,000 ducks and other birds are dead – mallards, green-wing teals, redhead ducks and other birds including American avocets and white-faced ibis began dying at a private lake about 20 miles southwest of Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge in Nevada on Aug. 30. The number of bacteria-killed birds has been on a steady rise ever since and could make 2011 one of the 10 worst years for botulism outbreaks since state records started in 1949. Read more HERE.
(Oct 6) A dead eight-foot-long bluefin tuna washed up on a beach in New Hampshire, the latest of a number of sea creatures whose bodies have mysteriously washed up on the state’s shore. Around 50 dead harbor seals, mostly pups, have washed up on beaches in Maine, New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts recently. Read more HERE.
(Oct 3) In the past nine months, 1000 turtles, mostly green turtles, have died along Queensland’s coast in Australia, compared with 555 in 2010, 625 in 2009 and 552 in 2008. Read more HERE.
(Oct 3) A number of dolphins were found dead and stranded in Parangtritis and Depok Beach, Yogyakarta in Indonesia. Prior to this, 17 dolphins were found dead in another area, in Ujung Kulon. Read more HERE.
Mass Animal Deaths: September 2011
The Animal Kingdom and The Pool of Life
