Regarding whether it its really all that surprising to find a few dead
shearwaters, given that their population is in the 10s of millions, I agree
that it is not; but given that probably all of those birds weren't passing
through at once (if they do, that in itself is pretty amazing), and that the
wreck here probably resulted in hundreds of thousands of dead birds, then I
guess I do think it's surprising. Perhaps not insidious or human-caused,
but definitely remarkable; and potentially linked to climatic events like La
Nina. I'm from the central coast of California, where there are regularly
enormous rafts of 10s of thousands of birds very close to shore; yet I've
never seen or heard described die-offs of this magnitude up there. It's
interesting, anyway!
Cheers,
Tonya
--
Tonya Haff
PhD candidate
Evolution, Ecology and Genetics
Research School of Biology
Australian National University
Mobile:+61-4-3331-2908
Lab: +61-2-6125-5651
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