Experts urge public to feed bread to swans after malnourished bird dies

The swan was 'massively underweight'

Hilary Mitchell

Daniel Morrow

14:38, 3 FEB 2019

UPDATED15:04, 3 FEB 2019

A rescue charity is urging members of the public to continue feed bread to swans after one bird was found ‘starved to death’.

Swan Support attempted to rescue a malnourished swan they found to have weighed just four kilogrammes in a lake on Thursday, January 24.

Workers at the charity attempted to rescue the young swan, but it had sadly died before it could be properly treated.

Now, the charity has blamed the death of the Hampshire swan on a campaign that called for members of the public to stop feeding them bread.

A leading food brand called WildThings teamed up with rescue charity Swan Lifeline to create the ‘Ban the Bread’ campaign in May 2018.

The campaign claimed that bread can cause muscles to grow to quickly causing a condition called ‘angel wing’ which can result in swans being unable to fly.

It was also said that bread causes a wide range of additional problems, such as damaging changes to their natural ecosystem.

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Industrial fisheries are starving seabirds all around the world

December 6, 2018, University of British Columbia

Industrial fisheries are starving seabirds like penguins and terns by competing for the same prey sources, new research from the French National Center for Scientific Research in Montpellier and the Sea Around Usinitiative at the University of British Columbia has found.

In a study published today in Current Biology, researchers found that annual seabird food consumption decreased from 70 to 57 million tonnes between 1970 and 2010. Meanwhile, fisheries increased their catches of potential seabird prey from an average of 59 million tonnes in the 1970s and 80s to 65 million tonnes per year in recent years.

"Fisheries persist in starving a vanishing seabird community, like a boa tightening its grip on prey," said David Grémillet, lead author of the study and a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research. "Despite the fact that the world's seabird community is shrinking, the level of competition between seabirds and fisheries remained the same between the 1970-1980s and 1990-2000s."

This diminished food supply is putting seabirds at risk—making them the most threatened bird group—with a 70 per cent community-level population decline in the past seven decades.

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Hungry birds: Food a concern for brown pelicans

The birds migrate north from California and Mexico

By Katie Frankowicz

The Daily Astorian

Published on May 22, 2018 12:01AM

Last changed on May 22, 2018 8:39AM

The Wildlife Center of the North Coast has already cared for several starving young California brown pelicans this spring.

Brown pelicans, which migrate north in the spring from nesting colonies off Southern California and Mexico, spent several decades on the federal endangered species list because of exposure to pesticides like DDT and other contaminants. Their delisting in 2009 was a success story, but concerns remain about the birds’ continued survival.

Chief among these concerns is the availability of food.

Anchovy and sardine stocks — important sources of food for brown pelicans — have collapsed in portions of the birds’ range. At nesting colonies in the south, researchers are concerned that lack of food is affecting the pelicans’ productivity. Some researchers theorize shifting ocean conditions could drive both prey and predators northward. In the meantime, a northern stock of anchovies remains an important source of food in the birds’ nonbreeding range, which includes roosts in Clatsop County.

“That’s a major concern and threat for this species,” said Michelle McDowell, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Brown pelicans have long lives — with a maximum documented life span of 43 years.

“They don’t have to breed every year, but making sure they have those food resources, that’s the big story of making sure this species is going to do well into the future,” she said.

It isn’t uncommon for wildlife center workers to have starving pelicans on their hands while the birds are up here. Sometimes pelicans stay north for too long, into late fall and early winter, and get stuck when food runs out.

Continued  

Penguins die in 'catastrophic' Antarctic breeding season

13 October 2017 

All but two Adelie penguin chicks have starved to death in their east Antarctic colony, in a breeding season described as "catastrophic" by experts.

It was caused by unusually high amounts of ice late in the season, meaning adults had to travel further for food.

It is the second bad season in five years after no chicks survived in 2015.

Conservation groups are calling for urgent action on a new marine protection area in the east Antarctic to protect the colony of about 36,000.

WWF says a ban on krill fishing in the area would eliminate their competition and help to secure the survival of Antarctic species, including the Adelie penguins.

continued

Sandy puts Northern bird in Florida, great danger

The heavy rains and tortuous winds of Hurricane Sandy disrupted many lives, and now some wildlife officials believe the super storm may be to blame for a bird that is showing up in Southwest Florida, exhausted and starving.

Wildlife specialists have never seen a razorbill here, but 19 of them have recently been brought to places such as the Conservancy of Southwest Florida in Naples and the Clinic for Rehabilitation of Wildlife on Sanibel. The black and white waterbirds usually don’t travel any further south than Virginia.

Experts say the birds mostly stay between Maine and New Jersey and prefer breeding in Iceland.

Sandy may have blown the small birds off course and destroyed their food supply. They are coming to Florida in search of food, but the long journey and lack of food they are used to eating is killing them. They normally eat schooling fish, crustaceans, herring and other invertebrates.

“It’s exhaustion and emaciation,” said Jessica Bender, wildlife rehabilitation specialist with the conservancy. “They are just really skinny and really tired.”

Continued:  http://www.news-press.com/article/20121231/NEWS0105/312310041/Sandy-puts-Northern-bird-Florida-great-danger?nclick_check=1