Once again, things are starting to look weird along the West Coast. A rash of bird deaths has scientists wondering if they're seeing a repeat of last year, when they were alarmed by throngs of dead birds washing up on beaches, underfed whales and the failure of Washington's largest seabird-nesting colony, among other developments.
Like last year, scientists say, this year's bird deaths appear related to changes in the marine food web that they still don't understand but that look as if they are related to unusual weather. The dead birds are being tested for toxins, bird flu and other diseases. But many are so scrawny that researchers say it's virtually a foregone conclusion that they starved to death.
"You've got skin and little more over the breastbone," said Bob Loeffel, a biologist who has scoured one stretch of Oregon beach for 28 years. "They're thin. Razor-thin." Dead birds have been turning up along the Pacific coast from the Columbia River south to about Newport, Ore., and in British Columbia. The birds dying in unusually high numbers in Oregon are rhinoceros auklets, a fish-eating bird a little smaller than a crow. Before this year, Loeffel had never found more than 13 of them in March on the 4.6-mile stretch of beach he monitors. This year it will easily exceed 100, he said. His is the longest-running study of dead birds on the Northwest coast.
Hundreds of other auklets have been found up and down the Oregon coast. "We've seen a dramatic rise in the number of rhino auklets washing up on the beaches," said Julia Parrish, a University of Washington professor who oversees a network of Northwest beach observers called the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team. "One thing that's given us pause is waiting to see if this is a several-week event, or is this going to go on longer?"
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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/264581_deadbirds28.html
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