Published 1 day ago • loading... • Updated 6 hours ago

A marine heat wave caused seabird deaths off California. El Nino could worsen the die-off

Large numbers of California brown pelicans, loons, and grebes starved to death in recent months as record-setting ocean temperatures pushed nutrient-rich waters farther offshore, said Tammy Russell, a postdoctoral scholar at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
A persistent marine heat wave off the West Coast, now coupled with a newly formed El Niño, is disrupting food webs and driving cold-water species deeper, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported.
Common murres require daily prey matching 10% to 30% of their body mass to survive, and without adequate food, they reach critical starvation thresholds within three days.
Rehabilitation centers treated hundreds of emaciated animals this spring, while J.D. Bergeron, CEO of International Bird Rescue, observed an unusual quantity of dead birds that tested negative for avian flu.
Researchers fear history could repeat itself, pointing to the 2013 'the Blob' marine heat wave that triggered the largest recorded seabird die-off, causing an estimated 4 million of Alaska's common murres to perish.

Insights by Ground AI