Rapid rise in global wildlife deaths

Update for Nov/early Dec 2013 - keep you informed about what's going on in our world. Here are just a small proportion of the English articles I could find lately.

5th Dec 2013: Mass dolphin strandings/deaths up East coast USA - 936 strandings reported since July:
http://www.clickorlando.com/news/more-dead-dolphins-wash-up-on-central-…

4th Dec 2013: 10 pilot whales dead and many more in danger, Florida:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/05/pilot-whales-strande…

26th Nov 2013: Hundreds (maybe thousands) of dead seabirds wash ashore on Alaska island in Bering Sea:
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20131126/hundreds-dead-seabirds-w…

28th Nov 2013: Masses of dead birds washing up on Australian coast:
http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/mutton-bird-death-fears/20984…

16th November 2013: 165 Turtles have washed ashore dead during past month in north east coast of Italy:
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&…

8th November 2013: Massive Oyster die off washes ashore on Khairan beach is 'unprecedented', Kuwait:
http://news.kuwaittimes.net/piles-dead-oysters-khairan-beach/

1st November 2013: 20 MILLION+ bees have died off this year (37 million last year) in Ontario and Quebec, Canada - watch video here:
http://london.ctvnews.ca/beekeepers-says-government-agencies-aren-t-act…

1st November 2013: Massive die off of sea stars now occuring along east and west coasts in America & Canada:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/338389-sea-star-die-off-has-population-…

This is just the tip of the iceberg. This is happening the world over.

Scientists are attempting to find out why one species of starfish is literally melting in the waters off of Washington state and Canada. Biologists in Seattle took to the Puget Sound waters last weekend to collect sick and healthy sunflower starfish for testing. Several labs including one at Cornell University will examine and compare samples with Canadian specimens already being analyzed.Whether the cause is environmental or disease related is currently unknown, but the number of melting starfish increases drastically with each passing day. “At this time, we don’t have a good idea of what’s causing it, so we’re going to look for everything,” Christiansen said. “There are a lot of melting sea stars out there, more than even a couple days ago.” According to Veterinarian Lesanna Lahner, the starfish specie’s condition is rapidly deteriorating, with more than half displaying the same disturbing symptoms. “It’s concerning to hear in a short time period we’re seeing 60% of this species diseased in this area,” Lahner said.

• "Across North America — in places as far-flung as Montana and British Columbia, New Hampshire and Minnesota — moose populations are in steep decline. And no one is sure why... Twenty years ago, Minnesota had two geographically separate moose populations. One of them has virtually disappeared since the 1990s, declining to fewer than 100 from 4,000. The other population, in northeastern Minnesota, is dropping 25 percent a year and is now fewer than 3,000, down from 8,000. (The moose mortality rate used to be 8 percent to 12 percent a year.) As a result, wildlife officials have suspended all moose hunting."

Read full NY Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/15/science/earth/something-is-killing-of…

The issue for me, is which stories to report on. Unusual wildlife deaths seems like the new 'normal'.

• Mysterious elk deaths plague New Mexico "Officials with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish are puzzling over the mysterious deaths of more than 100 elk, apparently all within a 24-hour period, in rural New Mexico. The elk were found Aug. 27 on a 75,000-acre ranch north of the city of Las Vegas. Livestock deaths, by themselves, are not unusual — there are many things that can fell large animals, including predators, poachers, a natural or man-made toxin, disease, drought, heat, starvation, and even lightning." http://www.livescience.com/39522-mysterious-elk-deaths-plague-new-mexic… Massive starfish die off Canada "The waters off British Columbia, Canada, are littered with dead starfish, and researchers have no idea what’s causing the deaths..." http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/09/massive-starfish-die…

I'm noticing an insane amount of fish die offs all over the world. I'll gather together all of the stories and post again. It's rather overwhelming. There are so many of them that it feels apocalyptic. :(

I;ve just read a very disturbing report of a sudden mass die out of millions of bees in Canada, shortly after corn was planted. Not something we should ignore, really. This is happening all over the world in similar ways. It's not someone else's problem - it's ours...

"Local beekeepers are finding millions of their bees dead just after corn was planted here in the last few weeks. Dave Schuit, who has a honey operation in Elmwood, lost 600 hives, a total of 37 million bees.

I was just reading a recent article in the Guardian newspaper - an interview with Bernie Krausse. He's spent spent 40 years recording nature's sounds. But such is the rate of species and habitat loss that notices a striking difference and silence emerging, where there once were the most incredible sounds. Here's a snippet from the article:

• "A great silence is spreading over the natural world even as the sound of man is becoming deafening," he writes in a new book, The Great Animal Orchestra. "Little by little the vast orchestra of life, the chorus of the natural world, is in the process of being quietened. There has been a massive decrease in the density and diversity of key vocal creatures, both large and small. The sense of desolation extends beyond mere silence. "If you listen to a damaged soundscape … the community [of life] has been altered, and organisms have been destroyed, lost their habitat or been left to re-establish their places in the spectrum. As a result, some voices are gone entirely, while others aggressively compete to establish a new place in the increasingly disjointed chorus." Hawaii, he says, is the extinction capital of the world. "In a couple of centuries since the islands were populated by Europeans, half the 140 bird species have disappeared. In Madagascar, 15 species of lemur, an elephant bird, a pygmy hippo and an estimated half of all the animals have gone extinct." Read in full here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/03/bernie-krause-natural…

I seem to hear a lot about the rapid increase of fungal disease both in plants and animals. Here is an example of how it is taking its total on global wildlife...

• "Asian frogs becoming extinct before they can be identified, biologists warn" Scientists fear amphibian destruction will be disastrous, with many species disappearing uncatalogued... Frogs and other amphibians are being wiped out at such a rapid rate across Asia that many are going extinct before scientists even have a chance to identify them as new species, biologists warned at an international conservation meeting in South Korea this week. The scale of the destruction – caused by habitat loss, disease, pollution and other factors – is hard to quantify, but scientists fear the result will be disastrous. Amphibians have been suffering a wave of devastation all around the world, in part because of the spread of the fungal disease Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, known as BD or chytrid fungus, which has wiped out whole populations within the space of a few years. Full article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/12/frog-species-extinct-… (Wednesday 12 September 2012)

I've just read this reposrt from Blue Voice about the death of 900 dolphins earlier this year in Peru. 900 dolphins don't just 'die' of natural causes. I was particularly interested to hear their views...

The Peruvian government has released a report on the mass mortality of at least 900 dolphins along the coast of Peru that states that “natural causes” and “evolutionary forces” were the cause of death.

BlueVoice, which has funded extended and extensive research conducted by Peruvian veterinarian and marine mammal expert Dr. Carlos Yaipen Llanos, believes that conclusion is nonsense. We present here a narrative history of the mortality event and Dr. Yaipen Llanos’ hypothesis that acoustical trauma followed by rapid ascent leading to catastrophic decompression is the most likely cause of death. Dr. Yaipen Llanos makes no assertion that seismic testing for oil is associated with the dolphin mortality. However BlueVoice suggests that this form of extremely loud testing makes the seismic tests a primary “element of interest”. Seismic testing was taking place in approximately the same time frame and geographical location as the dolphin mass mortality."

Read full and extensive article here:
http://www.bluevoice.org/news_perudolphins.php

It seems that the drought is exasperating disease conditions in some wildlife populations in the USA...

A virus has killed more than 900 white-tailed deer across eight Michigan counties this summer, 600 more than last summer.

State biologists struggle to explain the increase, but believe it could be related to warmer, drier weather.

Epizootic hemorrhagic disease, more commonly known as EHD, is a viral disease that causes severe, and often deadly symptoms in deer and related animals, said Brent Rudolph, deer and elk program leader at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

A midge, or type of small biting fly, infects deer through its bite, Rudolph said. People can’t contract the disease, and it cannot be transmitted from deer to deer, said Tom Cooley, wildlife biologist and pathologist at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

The virus generally begins to spread in late August when midges are most prevalent and stops when the first frost wipes most of them out, Cooley said.

“The virus has to survive the winter in some capacity, but it’s difficult to figure out how,” he said.

The summer’s extreme heat and drought, prime conditions for midges, are likely why sightings of infected deer came four to five weeks early this year, Cooley said.

The counties in Michigan with infected deer include: Barry, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Clinton, Eaton, Ionia and Montcalm counties. That’s a significant geographic spread, as only Cass and St. Joseph counties were affected in 2010.

The location of EHD outbreaks tends to change every year, Cooley said.

“We see this as something that doesn’t cause a dramatic long-term impact on the deer population, but in these localized areas it will be quite noticeable for folks,” Rudolph said.

Other Great Lakes states have lower instances of EHD, although it can vary year to year. Only two EHD related deaths have been confirmed so far this year in Ohio – both in Geauga County, said Mike Tonkovich, wildlife research biologist for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. There have been a handful of unconfirmed reports in four other Ohio counties as well, he said.

Indiana has also experienced a few outbreaks this summer.

Source:
http://greatlakesecho.org/2012/08/21/midge-fly-infecting-michigan-deer-…

Last year Scotland saw quite a rare event; 70 pilot wales stranded in the Kyle of Durness in Sutherland died in what is believed to be Scotland's largest ever beaching of pilot whales. 25 died. In November 2010, 35 whales were found dead on a beach in County Donegal in Ireland.

Early September 2012 16 Pilot wales died of the coast of Fife Scotland.

September 2012, 22 pilot whales came ashore at Avalon Beach State Park in Florida, many of whom died.

There are many more stories like this including huge strandings in New Zealand in recent times.

Mass strandings are not unusual.. but it feels like it happening more frequently than usual. Different factors can affect whether whales beach themselves or not. They may follow a confused leader. They may have there internal radar disrupted by disruption in the magnetic field, sonar, shipping noise, pollution. There is also a theory that whales and ocean life are affected by seismic activity. So an underwater earthquake may steer them off course.

Whatever the cause, it seems to be happening more and more in places that haven't seen it at that scale before!

The rapid spread of animal feed plantations across South America is wiping out rainforests and destroying the communities who've lived on the land for centuries. The Killing Fields lifts the lid on the battle to feed our factory farms.

August 13, 2012
JAPAN
In Komatsu city Ishikawa, more than 10,000 earthworms were found dead in a parking lot. Ishikawa prefecture is facing Japan / Korea Sea. Mr. Kobayashi is living near the parking lot. He comments he found earthworms dead in the evening of 8/5/2012. It kept increasing and now it’s scattered around in the 250 m2 of the area. There are about 500 dead worms in the space for one car. Because 16 cars can park there, more than 10,000 worms are dead in the whole area including the passageway. A former director of an insect’s museum visited the place to comment it is rare to see this many worms dead at once. It’s an ordinary type of earthworm. He assumes they came from the near greenery to the parking lot for water because of the intense heat and died there. Citizens nearby the area talks, “I haven’t seen such a thing. Is this because of the intense heat?” or “It may increase more.”
Fukushima Diary
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/08/more-than-10000-earthworms-found-dea…

• "Brazilian biologists are investigating the deaths of more than 500 penguins found washed up on the beaches of Rio Grande do Sul state. Autopsies are being conducted on some of the birds to determine the cause of death. Researchers said the penguins appeared to have been well-fed, with no apparent injuries and no oil on their bodies. Similar incidents in the past have been blamed on shifting ocean currents and colder temperatures...

Source BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-18838918

An incredibly important issue... What will happen when all the bees are gone?

• BLUE SPRINGS, Mo. - Missouri conservationists are trying to solve a mystery in an area lake. What started as a couple dozen dead carp turned into more than 10,000 in Blue Springs Lake. Conservationists took water samples and couldn't figure out exactly what caused the deaths. Their samples have now gone onto a national lab for further analysis. Between 500 and 1,000 carp have been killed everyday. Jake Allman, a biologist with the Missouri Conservation, started noticing carp with lesions under their scales the last few weeks. "There's a little bacteria on the fish, but not enough to really have caused this," Allman said. "This feeding activity where they are brushing up against each other can actually spread whatever is making them sick." If Allman had his way, this kill would only continue. "Their spawning activity disrupts spawning of other fish. They root around in the shallows and uproot aquatic vegetation which is beneficial to native fish," Allman explained. But it seems the carp are now starting to recover. Lake officials are now keeping an eye on the E. coli levels in the water. They had to close a swimming area during Memorial Day Weekend because of a threat of E. Coli from of all the dead fish.

Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun reported on May 23rd 2012...

• Something's rotten on the Baltimore area waterfront. Fish are washing ashore by the thousands in a mass die-off that officials say appears to be caused by a weather-driven worsening of the pollution that chronically plagues the Chesapeake Bay. State investigators expanded their probe Wednesday into what they believe are algae-related fish kills in Marley, Furnace and Curtis creeks in Glen Burnie, raising the estimated death toll there tenfold, while finding a new batch of finny carcasses in a Dundalk creek. Jay Apperson, spokesman for the Maryland Department of the Environment, said the agency's fish-kill investigators estimated anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 fish of several species dead in the three creeks in northern Anne Arundel County. Only a day before, Apperson had said investigators figured there were about 6,000 dead. "You could smell it through the neighborhood," said Rob Rogers, 45, who took a break from work at the Point Pleasant Beach Tavern to describe what he called "unbelievable" conditions on the creeks. Rogers said boaters reported dead fish floating in the water so thick they couldn't avoid hitting them. The state investigators also found about 300 dead fish in Bullneck Creek in eastern Baltimore County, Apperson said, where residents on Tuesday had reported seeing fish and crabs thrashing on the water's surface in apparent distress. The investigators measured little oxygen in the creek's deepest water for fish to breathe. The die-offs are a drastic byproduct of algae blooms that have discolored water in much of the upper bay for over a month now, officials said. "We've been having lots of algae blooms in Middle River, in Baltimore harbor, even down on the Severn River," said Thomas Parham, tidewater ecosystem assessment chief for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. "This is earlier than normal," he added, and while algae blooms are a common phenomenon on the bay in spring and summer, they normally are "not at this level." The algae turning area waters reddish brown, in what's often called a "mahogany tide," is known as prorocentrum minimum, a type that has been known to produce a toxin that can kill shellfish, Parham said. While that that toxic trait has not been seen in the bay, the algae do kill fish indirectly, by consuming the life-sustaining oxygen in the water when the tiny aquatic plants die and begin to decay. Algae feed on nitrogen and phosphorus in the water, and the bay is a super-rich soup of those plant nutrients — from sewage discharges and leaks, from fertilizer washing off farm fields and lawns and from air pollution that trickles down out of the sky. Scientists suspect this year's algae blooms came earlier and grew thicker because of the extra dose of nutrients and sediment that flooded into the bay last summer from Tropical Storm Lee, turning the water the color of malted milk for weeks afterward. The situation may have been aggravated more recently by a sewer line break in Baltimore County, which spilled an estimated 50 million gallons of untreated sewage into the lower Patapsco River. Though the spill was halted promptly, it took until this week for bacteria levels to decline enough for health officials to say it was OK to touch the water downriver. "Whether it's the impacts of last year's storm, it's hard to say," Parham said of the algae blooms. "There's lots of nutrients around. The sewage spill added to that." Whatever the source of the nutrients feeding the algae, the DNR official said the warm snap in March helped trigger the blooms earlier than normal. "When you have a condition where it's nice and toasty and warm," Parham said, "it's a perfect recipe for those algal blooms." And in warm, relatively wind-less weather, oxygen levels can drop precipitously when algae blooms take over small tidal creeks and coves and then begin to die back after consuming all the nutrients in the water. That's the phenomenon officials and scientists believe caused these and most previous fish kills. Oxygen levels in the bay's deeper waters and in some shallow enclosed areas also have dropped below what's considered normal this time of year. Some volunteers raising oysters in creeks along the bay's western shore have reported finding the shellfish they planted in previous years have died. Michael Naylor, the DNR's head of shellfish programs, said many of those oysters were placed in places where water quality was marginal to begin with, so some die-offs are not unexpected. Overall, he said, the bay's oyster populations have fared surprisingly well. Temperatures in the bay are getting closer to normal, Parham said, but the weather usually gets warmer in late spring and early summer, which is when algae blooms normally thrive in the bay "A lot depends on the weather now," said Naylor. While state officials portrayed the fish kills as normal, if somewhat earlier and more intense than usual, Rob Rogers said it was the worst he'd ever seen in a lifetime of living along Marley Creek. "We had that red tide about 10 years ago," he said. "That was nothing compared to this. …The crabs were crawling out of the water to get air. When you're watching fish try to gulp air out of the water, something's wrong there."

May 23rd 2012 By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun Source: http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/bs-gr-algae-fish-kill-201205…

Published May 25th 2012

• Astana: A massive wave of deaths has been reported among the endangered saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan. Around 540 carcasses of the animal has been found in the country, RIA Novosti reported Thursday. According to the Kazakh agriculture ministry, the carcasses were found in the Kostanai region. "Aviation monitoring today (Thursday) discovered a new concentration of saiga deaths with the approximate number of dead animals reaching beyond 400," the ministry said. Last year, at least 12,000 saiga antelopes died in Kazakhstan, presumably from pasteurellosis infection and from overeating. In November 2010, Kazakhstan introduced a ban on saiga hunting. The latest statistics put the number of saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan at 85,500. The country spends $800,000 annually to prevent the deaths. Saiga were virtually exterminated in the 1920s but then their numbers increased in the 1950s. The animals mostly became endangered because of hunting and the high demand for their horns in traditional Chinese medicine. Saiga are also found in Russia's Kalmykia region and in Mongolia.

First Published: Friday, May 25, 2012 http://zeenews.india.com/news/eco-news/hundreds-of-endangered-antelopes…

Report from David Perlman San Francisco Chronicle May 29th 2012

• For the first time, scientists have detected radioactivity in fish that have migrated into California waters from the ocean off Japan, where radiation contaminated the sea after explosions tore through the Fukushima nuclear reactors last year. Radioactive cesium was detected in samples of highly prized Pacific bluefin tuna, but it is well below levels considered unsafe for humans, the scientists say. The evidence is "unequivocal" that the tuna - caught off San Diego a year ago - were contaminated with radiation from Japan's nuclear disaster, the researchers said. Virtually all bluefin tuna on the market in the United States is either farmed or caught far from the Fukushima area, so American consumers should not be affected by radiation contamination in their fish, seafood distributors say. The migratory bluefin studied by the researchers were all caught by sport fishermen and were not headed for the market. Daniel J. Madigan, a marine ecologist at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove (Monterey County), Nicholas Fisher, a marine scientist internationally known as a specialist in radiation hazards at Stony Brook University on Long Island, and Zophia Baumann, a staff scientist in Fisher's laboratory, reported their discovery Monday in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Unexpected discovery The finding was wholly unexpected, Madigan said. It came about when he was researching the migratory patterns of bluefin tuna as part of a broader study of Pacific fish migration. Madigan had collected samples of muscle tissue from 15 2-year-old tuna given to him by San Diego fishermen in August, and when tests detected radioactivity in one sample he sent all 15 samples to Fisher in Long Island, he said. The young tuna, averaging about 13 pounds apiece, were found to be contaminated with two radioactive forms of the element cesium. Isotopes called cesium-134 and cesium-137 do not exist in nature but are produced only in nuclear explosions such as the weapons tests of the Cold War era. Before the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami, low levels of the radioactive cesium-137 , which decays to harmlessness only over thousands of years, had been measured in Japanese waters, while the shorter-lived cesium-134 was undetectable, the scientists said. That difference, they said, was crucial in concluding that the radioactive contamination was linked to the Fukushima disaster. Increased concentrations of radioactivity contaminated nearly 60,000 square miles of the ocean off Japan after workers at Fukushima pumped thousands of tons of seawater over reactors last year to prevent a complete meltdown of the reactor cores. Fisher said there is one unanticipated benefit from Madigan's discovery of radioactivity in the bluefin tuna. If the cesium isotopes are also detected in other migratory ocean species like turtles, sharks, seals and seabirds, that information should prove valuable as "tracers" that would add fresh details of migratory patterns to what is now gathered by widespread tagging programs, he said. A new study planned Meanwhile, Madigan said, he is preparing to collect samples from a new group of bluefin tuna that have recently migrated to the waters off San Diego in order to determine their levels of radioactive cesium. They will have lived in Fukushima's contaminated ocean for a full year longer than the first fish he collected, and the scientists will seek to know whether radiation levels in the tunas' bodies have increased or decreased, he said. "We don't think there will be any public health concern from the results of the new tests," Fisher said, "but if we do see any higher concentrations of cesium, we will certainly alert public health agencies again." In Japan the fatty muscle in the tuna is particularly prized as a delicacy, sliced and eaten raw as sushi. It is very pricey, and early this year a nearly 600-pound Pacific bluefin sold in a Japanese wholesale market for the equivalent of $736,000 - $1,238 a pound.

By David Perlman (The San Francisco Chronicle's science editor) Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/28/BAB11ON3J4…

May 24, 2012 By Claire Bigg, Mariyat Shapsug Hardly a day goes by in Sochi, Russia's picturesque Black Sea resort, without a dead dolphin washing up on the beach. With the tourist season just kicking off, the unexplained deaths have yet to draw much scrutiny. But environmentalists are increasingly alarmed. The dolphin carcasses are also turning into a real holiday spoiler for vacationers drawn to the region's scenic beaches and pristine vistas. Russian tourist Aida Kobzh was shocked to discover a group of dead dolphins last week at her local beach in Sochi. "Everyone stood there and stared at the dead little dolphins lying belly up. Poor creatures!" Kobzh says. "There were some on the beach but also in the water, they were floating there, dead." Little Official Interest The dolphins started washing up along Russia's Black Sea coast several weeks ago. They have also been spotted on Ukrainian shores. Environmentalists are now talking about the biggest dolphin die-off to date in the region, with an estimated 300 animals dead so far. Local authorities have made no serious attempt to investigate the deaths, saying the animals are too decayed by the time they reach the shore for laboratory tests to be conducted. Officials have blamed poachers and fishing nets. They say the unusually cold winter has driven dolphins from the Sea of Azov to the warmer Black Sea. Some experts, like local zoologist Konstantin Andramonov, point to a possible killer virus. "The death toll is constantly growing, unfortunately," Andramonov says. "We are now witnessing the same in Ukraine. There is a hypothesis that we are dealing with an infectious disease that occurs roughly every 20 years." Ecosystem In Danger Most experts, however, believe the real culprit is ever-increasing pollution in the Black Sea region. Valery Brinikh, who works for the prominent environmental group Ecological Watch, says the scale of the dolphin deaths belies official accounts faulting poachers and fishing nets. "This happens every year in Sochi -- sometimes there are more deaths, sometimes fewer," Brinikh says. "But the scale this time suggests unnatural causes, probably sea pollution or a loss of orientation of the dolphins, which can also be linked to pollution." Environmentalists say pollution levels have risen dramatically around Sochi since the city was selected to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. They have long warned that unbridled construction is inflicting irreparable ecological damage to Sochi's unique ecosystem. Olga Noskovets, a local ecologist, suspects that the authorities are perfectly aware it is pollution that is killing the dolphins. She says pollution levels are highest in areas close to the Olympic construction sites that dot Sochi and its outskirts. Black-And-Blue Sea According to Noskovets, the most affected area is Sochi's Lazarevsky district, where tourist Aida Kobzh recently spotted the dead dolphins. "The biggest hazard is posed by a river that runs through the Lazarevsky district, an area with a high concentration of sanatoriums, including for children," says Noskovets. "The infamous Olympic dump lies nearby, and it has no waste-treatment system. This small mountain stream, which used to have fish, is now cloudy, brown and foamy. It collects waste and carries it to beaches that once counted among the most beautiful in the area." Noskovets says the dolphin die-off should act as a wake-up call. She says the authorities must urgently sound the alarm and warn visitors about the health hazards of bathing on certain Black Sea beaches before the tourist season reaches its peak. "If sea creatures that are adapted to life in the sea react this way, what will the consequences be for humans?" Noskovets says. "Every year, numerous people suffer poisoning incidents after bathing in the sea, and these are always blamed on food poisoning. It is a nasty lie from our authorities, who are afraid of telling the truth -- that the Black Sea is simply being poisoned." Original Source: Radio Free Europe http://www.rferl.org/content/black-sea-ecologists-alarmed-by-dolphin-de…