MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By MATT RILKOFF, Taranaki Daily News Online – “Dead and dying seals are showing up in alarming numbers on New Plymouth beaches.

August is never a good month for seals as weeks of rough winter weather and lack of food take their toll on old and young alike.

But Conservation Department ranger Bryan Williams said more are dying this year than usual.

‘We don’t know why because they are all dying in different scenarios,’ Mr Williams said.

Some are young and starved, others are old and at the end of their life and others still are dropping dead in the water and floating into Port Taranaki.

Should anyone see a seal on the beach or on land they should keep well clear and give DOC a call, Mr Williams said.

‘And if they have a dog they should put it on a lead. For some reason seals and dogs don’t mix. Those little chihuahua-type dogs, a decent seal will chomp one of those in one mouthful.’

Mr Williams said it was common for seals to come ashore for as long as three days during winter months.

‘And when they do that they get weepy around the eyes. People think they are sick but this is normal.’

New Plymouth’s seal colony varies in number from 300 in the summer to 500 now.

As many as 12 seal pups are born in late December and January and it is around this time of year sightings of the infamous white pointer shark dubbed the ‘Taranaki Terror’ are some times made.

The female shark is thought to be as much as 6 metres long and was last seen in Taranaki waters two years ago.” Source – Taranaki Daily News Online.

By Clynt Ridgell, Pacific News Center -“Guam – Last week dead fish were found mysteriously washing up along the shores of Pago bay. Today PNC went to Pago Bay to investigate the possible cause of this unusual phenomenon.

On Thursday of last week a student at the University of Guam’s marine lab noticed a lot of dead fish along the short in Pago bay. He took pictures of the fish and forwarded them to UOG marine lab professor Dr. Jason Biggs. ‘Well one of the things that set up a red flag for me is that this is the first time that it’s ever been noticed for Pago bay to have a fish kill like this,’ said Dr. Biggs.

Department of agriculture fisheries biologist Brent Tibbats also examined the photos. He says they appear to be shallow water fish that live in the reef flats and sea grass. Based on the photos, which show that many of the fish died with open mouths, Tibbats believes that natural causes are the most likely culprit…

However, as Dr. Biggs has pointed out this is the first time that they’ve seen this at Pago bay. ‘Over the past we’ve noticed areas where it happens commonly actually are Tumon bay is one and down along the southeast coast kind of from Ipan beach park down to first beach those areas something about them seems to be where fish kills repeatedly during these low tides during the middle of the day,’ said Tibbats.

Nevertheless Dr. Biggs is concerned that something else maybe the cause of this strange event.” Read more.

By Larry Seward, KHOU 11 News – “JAMAICA BEACH, Texas – Thousands of dead fish are washing ashore along the Texas coast from the Colorado River to Galveston Island and Parks and Wildlife biologists suspect low oxygen levels off shore may be to blame.

What tides are bringing in on Jamaica Beach is making people pause.

‘I hope it’s nothing major,’ said Mark Gannon, who took his family to the beach Sunday.  ‘I hope the water is safe.’

Thousands of dead shad litter the sand.

‘Any idea what it is?’ asked Gannon’s wife Alexia.

Her children tried to explain the problem.

‘At night time, the waves pull up really far so the fish can’t handle that, so they get up on the shore,’ said Abby Gannon.

Authorities said the answer is not so simple. Biologists with the Parks and Wildlife Department began testing ph, saline and oxygen levels in water samples taken along the coast.

‘When something’s affecting one [fish] then usually a lot of them are being affected at the same time because it’s such a big group [swimming in schools] together,’ said Steven Mitchell of Texas Parks and Wildlife.

He suspects low oxygen in the water is a problem. However, he won’t know for sure until biologists are able to test water up to 10 miles off shore. That could take several days.” Read more.

Fukushima Diary – “In Komatsu city Ishikawa, more than 10,000 earthworms 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.

Former director of insects 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.'” Source – Fukushima Diary.

By Alexandra Sanders, New Haven Register – “NEW HAVEN — Dozens of dead fish littered the Quinnipiac River banks near Front Street, coating the area in a thick, fishy scent, providing a feast for sea gulls and leaving some fishermen scratching their heads.

The fish, reportedly menhaden, could be seen among the rocks and seaweed of the river’s shore, with sunlight glinting off their silver scales. Birds were flocking to the spot, pecking at the fish and waiting for others to die.

Massachusetts resident Ismael Perez was stepping around the fish Tuesday while he cast a line with two other fishermen. When asked whether he was concerned about the high fish kill rate, he said, ‘Yeah, because I don’t know why they’re dying,’ but they are usually used as bait, not as food, so he wasn’t worried about people catching them and eating them.

‘I’ve never seen this many dead fish,’ said Perez, who fishes about three days a week in Massachusetts.

Mark Alexander, supervising fisheries biologist for the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s Fisheries Division, said this is the second large fish kill that has been reported in New Haven in a week.” Read more.

By Eddie Fitzgerald, Havelock News – “A large fish kill reported on the south shore of the Neuse River between Flanners Beach and Hancock Creek this past weekend has Neuse Riverkeepers concerned.

George Matthis, executive director of Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation, said Tuesday morning he was unsure what caused the fish kill or how large it was.

It was still being investigated Tuesday morning, he said.

‘People started seeing dead fish on the river late Saturday between Flanners Beach and Hancock Creek,’ Matthis said.

By Monday, the fish kill was spotted down river near Camp Don Lee in Arapahoe, he said.

Mitch Blake, Neuse Riverkeeper based in New Bern, said he does not believe there was a massive fish kill that stretched across the river to areas near the camps in Arapahoe but thought it was a large kill.

‘I think the winds shifted directions and they floated to the north side from the south side,’ he said.

Someone had reported to Blake on Monday that the dead fish consisted of flounder, croaker, menhaden and blue crab.

Blake was investigating a huge clam kill Monday in the Neuse River in Kinston that he thought could be associated with what was killing the fish.

Tuesday afternoon, Blake and a biologist working in Kinston, said Asian clams were turning up dead in the river from about Seven Springs to Kinston and the highest concentration of them was in Kinston. He did not find any in the river at Goldsboro, he said…

‘Oxygen depletion will affect a clam just like a fish,’ he said. ‘And rapid changes in water temperature will affect it. There is some kind of change happening there. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.'” Read more.