alaska seabirds dying

Three Strikes And You’re Out – N. Pacific Seabirds Dying For The Third Year In A Row

In an unimaginable tragedy for third year in a row, seabirds are washing up dead along the coastline in Alaska.

This isn’t just one carnary in a coal mine whose death throes sends us a warning, the whole damn race of canaries is dying faster than we can count their deaths.

The cause is no mystery they are simply starving to death on ocean pastures that have become clear blue lifeless deserts.

We can and we must save them.

Julia Parrish, an associate dean at University of Washington, said seabirds have to work really hard just trying to find dinner.

“You’re spending a heck of a lot of your time flying around for food,” Parrish said.

The emaciated bodies of the dead fulmars and shearwaters washing up on shore proves the birds are struggling to find enough to eat. So far (September 2017) about 800 have been discovered along the coast of the Bering Sea. Parish said early lab results don’t point to disease. She notes that it looks like the birds are starving to death.

Three Strikes And You Are Out

how many canaries must die

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In 2016, scientists documented the largest seabird die-off in the state in the Gulf of Alaska. IN 2015 there was a similar die off.

Parrish said the mortality rate this year isn’t as high. Still, scientists are concerned about the frequency of the die-offs. Before 2014, it wasn’t uncommon to see seabird deaths every three or four years as the ocean productivity displays some regular cycles. But now we are seeing a big difference and it just points to a deadly persistent shift in the system.

Parrish noted hopefully that this might not mean the seabirds can’t adapt if the collapse of their ocean pasture continues. Humpback whales who are suffering starvation on the same Gulf of Alaska ocean pastures are now seend to being feeding on commercial hatchery fish. Those hatchery runs of salmon are some of the only abundance left and that has left them now choice. She said Alaska seabirds could eventually learn to visit new feeding territories, too, save there are none to be found within flying time for the starving sea birds of the North Pacific.

Parris notes that the question of whether the seabirds can keep up with their changing environment remains to be seen. She and other scientists are watching closely, as seabird deaths can signal the health of the entire ocean.

this tragedy of seabirds dying in droves is nothing new as I have reported in many stories here on my blog. Last year the NE Pacific witnessed the same massive winter die off of seabirds. Elsewhere in the Atlantic, the South Pacific, the Indian Ocean the tragic story is the same as ocean pastures in all of the World’s Seven Seas collapse into desolation.

There is no mystery to this mass starvation of ocean wildlife, as ocean pasture ecosystems collapse there is simply nothing for the birds, fish, and all manner of other sea life to eat.

An Entirely Preventable Tragedy

This ocean pasture tragedy is made all the worse due to the fact that we could be taking care of our threatened ocean pastures, restoring, replenishing, and sustaining them for an inconsequential amount of money. I should know I have done it in this very same region of the NE Pacific.

The cost of acting as caring stewards of vital ocean pastures in all of the world’s Seven Seas is mere millions per year. In return for helping Mother Nature she returns to us, the seabirds, and all of ocean life an monumental abundance. In the Gulf of Alaska just a few short years ago my work to restore and replenish an ocean pasture saw the largest catch of Alaska salmon in all of history return. Where a good catch of some 50 million Pink Salmon were expected to be caught in 2013 instead 226 million Pink Salmon were caught, far more were free to feed all of ocean life and to fill rivers and streams with the fish so abundant one could almost walk across the rivers on the backs of salmon.

sitka news salmon story

My 2012 ocean pasture replenishment and restoration work in the NE Pacific returned the ocean to life as seen in the largest catch of salmon in all of history in Alaska the next year.

Here’s how to save the birds world and yours!

The number of people needed to restore and sustain all of the world’s Seven Seas is mere hundreds, perhaps a thousand or so. The cost is mere millions every year nothing like the trillions being sought as climate/carbon taxes to save the world from climate change. The time to rescue, replenish, and restore ocean pastures around the world isn’t decades or more rather it can be accomplished by a few hundred dedicated souls at a collective cost to the entire world of a few millions of dollars per year. Ours will be a song that delivers hope based on proven results in the world’s largest ocean experiment, my experiment/demonstration of 2012.

Will you help save the seabirds? Join me.