Sea Birds

November, 2009

• 9 November

  Commercial fishing threatens survival of albatross, conservationists warn

  

  Albatrosses and other birds are facing extinction as they become tangled in commercial fishing gear, conservation organisations warned today. Thirty-seven species of seabird are at risk and 18 of these species, including albatrosses, are under threat of extinction, the RSPB and BirdLife International warned. The birds take bait from hooks, …
• 5 November

  Pelicans filmed gobbling gannets

  

  In a bizarre reaction to dwindling fish stocks, great white pelicans have turned to eating live gannet chicks. On the island of Malgas in South Africa, the pelicans attack any gannet chick that is left undefended by its parents and is small enough to swallow. Due to people overfishing sardine …
• 3 November

  Bulgaria Bird Organization Director Slams Black Sea Wind Farms

  

  The Executive Director at the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB), Nada Tosheva, has stated Tuesday that the Bulgaria government should reconsider the construction of wind farms on the Black Sea coast. Europe’s birds are threatened by the construction especially in areas where they concentrate during migration like …

October, 2009

• 29 October

  Lead poisoning threatens a vulnerable albatross population

  

  Populations of Laysan albatross face severe declines due to widespread lead poisoning of chicks unless comprehensive cleanup measures gain momentum, according to a recent study. “Lead poisoning could be killing up to 10,000 chicks per year, and it”s affecting the long-term survival of Laysan albatross,” said Finkelstein, who led a …
• 28 October

  Pacific sea birds dine on trash: researchers

  

  Researchers at the University of Hawaii found that Laysan albatrosses that nest on Kure Atoll, a small island in the middle of the Pacific, ingested almost 10 times the amount of plastic that birds of Oahu, Hawaii, did. Most of the garbage the researchers could identify consisted of equipment from …
• 27 October

  Foam from ocean algae bloom killing thousands of birds

  

  A slimy foam churning up from the ocean has killed thousands seabirds and washed many others ashore, stripped of their waterproofing and struggling for life. The birds have been clobbered by an unusual algae bloom stretching from the northern Oregon coast to the tip of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington …
• 6 October

  Feds Will Face Lawsuit for Denying Penguins Endangered Species Protections

  

  The Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network today notified the Department of the Interior of their intent to file suit against the agency for denying necessary protections under the Endangered Species Act for emperor and rockhopper penguins, despite clear scientific evidence that the species are threatened by …
• 6 October

  Reward offered in seabird killings

  

  A $500 reward was offered for information leading to an arrest in the killing of federally-protected seagulls on the Long Beach Peninsula. The birds were run down on Monday afternoon near the Bolstad and Snyder beach entrances, Washington Fish & Wildlife officials said.
• 1 October

  Controversial cormorants

  

  One obvious change in Finland’s coastal scene has been the sudden reappearance of cormorants, hundreds of years after they were hunted into local extinction. Since the first birds bred in Finland again in 1996, their numbers have shot up to 16,000 pairs. But these large, black, fish-eating birds are widely …

September, 2009

• 23 September

  Poachers hit bird sanctuaries

  

  Bird sanctuaries and stork gardens throughout the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta have lost thousands of birds each year to poachers due to lax regulations. The delta has dozens of sanctuaries scattered throughout Can Tho City, and the provinces of Dong Thap, Kien Giang, An Giang, Tra Vinh, Bac Lieu and …
• 15 September

  Fishing practices killing more than 200,000 seabirds each year, says charity

  

  More than 200,000 seabirds die each year ensnared in fishing equipment in European waters, conservationists warned today. Among the birds which die as “bycatch” in EU fisheries is the critically-endangered Balearic shearwater, which wildlife experts say is more threatened than the tiger.
• 4 September

  Study links Phillip Island penguin breeding patterns to climate change

  

  Scientists say Phillip Island”s penguins are hatching smaller chicks, as changing weather conditions caused by climate change disrupt their normal feeding patterns. Researchers from Australia, France and Japan have published a study showing penguins do not find fish and other small prey as easily when heavy storms disrupt oceans and …