As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Tuesday 19 July 2016

Starving seabirds washing up dead on Washington beaches


By JOHN RYAN • JUL 16, 2016

Seabirds have been washing up dead on beaches in Washington and British Columbia this summer, and scientists can't say why.

Rhinoceros auklets are one of the most common birds in the network of inland waterways shared by Washington and British Columbia. Since May, volunteer "citizen scientists" on the north side of the Olympic Peninsula and across the water in Victoria, British Columbia, have found dozens of the puffin-like birds washed ashore.

It's a tiny toll compared to the dieoffs of other species of seabirds in 2014 and 2015. Common murres and Cassin's auklets washed up by the hundreds of thousands up and down North America's west coast.

But scientists are concerned nonetheless.

"There's something larger going on here," University of Washington biologist Julia Parrish said. “If we ignore it and only pay attention when it’s really dire, then it’s often too late to do anything about it.”

Parrish runs the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, whose volunteer beachwalkers help scientists keep tabs on seabirds and garbage floating ashore in five western states.  


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