Hi all, Just to follow up - the link to the paper by Haman et al. is here <http://www.bioone.org/doi/10.7589/2012-04-119?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed&> (including the abstract). I think the full text is behind a paywall for most, but send me an email if you would like a pdf.
The authors have some evidence that on at least one occasion a wreck of Great Shearwaters may have been caused by poor food conditions in the South Atlantic, during their molting period prior to migration. These birds make the crossing of the low-productivity Tropics quite quickly, and travel past Long Island just before arriving at their "early winter" feeding grounds off of Massachusetts. It's possible that poor conditions somewhere very distant would cause them to start the journey without full reserves. We are only beginning to learn the details of the migration patterns in a lot of seabirds, and there are still plenty of unanswered questions in the field. I'm eagerly awaiting the results of the necropsies being performed on the collected specimens. Michael Schrimpf Setauket/ Stony Brook University On Tue, Jun 20, 2017 at 5:26 PM, Shaibal Mitra <shaibal.mi...@csi.cuny.edu> wrote: > I spent several hours at Democrat Pt today, carefully checking the entire > wrack line, and found 14 dead Great Shearwaters and a dead Leatherback > Turtle (the folks in Riverhead have been notified). > > http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S37704445 > > I also just heard through Derek Rogers that dead Great Shearwaters have > been found on the beach at Montauk. > > To me, the simultaneous deaths of these shearwaters, along with the Brown > Booby and the Leatherback Turtle, seem more than a coincidence and are > suggestive of something wrong out there in the blue water, probably > relating to food. > > At this point, it seems that the weather pattern described by David > Nicosia probably played a role in concentrating these animals in our area, > but would not in itself have caused their distress. Andrew Farnsworth has > described major sea surface temperature anomalies in the Atlantic; this > sort of thing could have big impacts on marine food webs, and it is > possible that the birds encountered food shortages over larger areas and > longer periods than they could tolerate. Finally, Michael Schrimpf alerted > us to a paper describing 12 mass mortality events involving Great > Shearwaters on the US Atlantic Coast (GREAT SHEARWATER (PUFFINUS GRAVIS) > MORTALITY EVENTS ALONG THE EASTERN COAST OF THE UNITED STATES. Journal of > Wildlife Diseases, 49(2), 2013, pp. 235–245 # Wildlife Disease Association > 2013. Katherine H. Haman,1,2 Terry M. Norton,2 Robert A. Ronconi,3 Nicole > M. Nemeth,1 Austen C. Thomas,4 Sarah J. Courchesne,5 Al Segars,6 and M. > Kevin Keel7,8). > I haven't read this yet, but a quick scan reveals not only that many GRSH > involved in strandings were emaciated, but also that in some cases they had > swallowed plastic. > > We await further data on the scale of the wreck, and on the condition of > the specimens that have been salvaged. > > Shai Mitra > Bay Shore > -- > > NYSbirds-L List Info: > http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm > http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm > http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm > > ARCHIVES: > 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html > 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L > 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 > > Please submit your observations to eBird: > http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ > > -- > > -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --