June 07, 2014 - EARTH -
The following constitutes the latest reports of unusual and symbolic animal
behavior, mass die-offs, beaching and stranding of mammals, and the
appearance of rare creatures.
A mass death of fish in the About Head West on Altmuehlsee troubled sport fishermen and authorities. It is feared that the problem with the announced increase in temperature exacerbated the weekend. Already, up to six tonnes of bream, perch and pike but also have been found dead in the river.
The sports fishermen of Absberger fishing club are completely dissolved, because they feel the effects of fish dying immediately. Erwin Schwab Frickenfelden is fishing overseer of the association. He complained that the authorities "to watch for six weeks and do nothing." The focus of his criticism is the Water Authority Ansbach: "It could do something, but does not matter."
It is about the section of the Altmühl About Head west from the outlet of the lake in Altmühltherme Schlungenhof up to the inflow into the tunnel. In this approximately three-kilometer area Schwab and his fishermen friends have first determined the death of small white fish, in the last two weeks but also large fish are spotted lying dead in the water, and was taken from the waters. "There are now Zander of up to 90 centimeters long while," said Erwin Schwab excited. Chance of pike were also among the dead fish.
The sports fishermen of ASV Absberg every day on the spot. You have the waters leased from the three mill owners who had received awarded as part of the Lakes construction by the State of the fishing rights. 300 meters before the tunnel inlet Schwab took pictures to document the extent of the fish kill. He was there when the fishermen 85 dead walleye fished out of the over head at the level of Lüther factory ten days ago.
Having Mayor Karl-Heinz Fitz informed, concerted action has started last Saturday, at the fire department, the police, the Water Authority and the Fisheries Association of Middle Franconia were involved. The firemen were rolling with their pumps to the water, thus improves its oxygen content. The result was obvious lean, because the oxygen content has measurably improved only slightly.
The fish are starved
Thomas Liepold, the manager of the Water Management Office at Altmuehlsee in Schlungenhof has registered a light fish kills in over head in the spring of 2013. At that time, mainly Gyster, six to eight inches large bream, died. The instantaneous death does not take the officer to be taken lightly, but really satisfied with the already finished inspection of fish by the fishing association, it can not be. While it was found no virus, but it is noticed that the fish had no food in the stomach, and are therefore simply starved. - Nord Bayern. [Translated]
It's happened again. More dead fish have washed up in Galveston County.
On Friday, we learned of more dead fish near the Kemah Bridge at Todville Road in Seabrook. This come nearly two weeks after fish first washed ashore near the same spot.
At the time, Texas Parks and Wildlife says the shad or bait fish are likely showing up dead because of oxygen depletion.
When the fish washed ashore the last time, within a couple of days, they had decomposed and were for the most part gone. - ABC13.
Officials are investigating what caused hundreds of fish to wash ashore along the beach of a Jersey shore town.
According to State environmental officials, hundreds of fish washed up Friday morning in Cape May Point.
According to Larry Hajna of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, at this point, there is no reason to believe that the dead fish are washing up as the result of any environmental issue.
A preliminary investigation points to a broken fishing boat net that released the fish into the ocean in the southern portion of the peninsula.
At this point, DEP officials said there are no plans to clean up the fish or gather them from the water. They said whatever is left on the shore will be washed back out with the tide.
There is no word on how far out to sea the fishing boat was.
The discovery is not impacting beach operations.
The investigation is ongoing.
WATCH: Hundreds Of Dead Fish Wash Ashore In North Cape May.
- CBS.
Yesterday morning, reporters in Caidian Yu Yin Zhen Yang Village, the two groups met outside the room beekeepers yellow soldiers arrayed hundreds of beehives, concrete floor next to the dead bee dense, weed also visible piles of dead bees . Huang Bing, he raised 130 boxes of Italian bees, four months after the canola flower to collect nectar Xiantao, before January return Yuxian, arrived in early June to prepare Dawu, take honey from the bars, only to depart yet Italian bees large number of deaths. About a week ago, there is sporadic Italian bees died Huangbing Gang started yet did not care, then more dead more Italian bees, now he had been dead for eighty percent of Italian bees.
Huang Bing surrounding beekeepers have encountered the same problem. Yang Village thirty-four mile away from the old Village Yonganzhen Caidian, Zhu Yuan beekeeping for more than ten years.朱玉安 said, each box there are about 28,000 Italian bees began to emerge from the week before dead bees, and has now lost Qi Cheng. He said, according to the loss of 20,000 per case basis, he lost up to 2.4 million Italian bees. "If we can arrive Dawu bullion flowers, 120 boxes of honey bees can collect 6000 pounds!" Zhu Yuan sad to say, his family lost several million.
According to statistics, around the damaged beekeepers reached 13, reaching more than 1,000 beehives box, all yearn to find out why beekeepers Italian bees dead.
Yesterday afternoon, the Bureau of Animal Husbandry Caidian technology promotion stations 周科长 interview with reporters, said that after receiving the reflected beekeepers, Huazhong Agricultural University has invited experts on-site investigation, experts believe that the suspected pesticide poisoning. He also said that if you want to find out the cause of death, to the dead bees to the Fujian Institute of Animal dissection laboratory.
Beekeepers say the recent few flowering plants and vegetables, wild flowers can not play pesticides, only a large area planted near cabbage flower, suspect with this. Caidian technology promotion stations 周科长 Animal Husbandry Bureau, said there are beekeepers believe that excessive pesticide cabbage flowers can be reflected to the District Agricultural Bureau. - Ifeng. [Translated]
There are hundreds of things to see, do, and talk about at the World Pork Expo this week in Des Moines, Iowa. But one subject eventually surfaces in virtually every conversation: Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus, or PED. The nasty nature of this new disease has everyone talking. A year ago at WPX, PED was a blip that had most pork producer’s attention, but no one could foresee just how quickly it would spread to infect half of all the sows in the U.S. And no one knew how destructive it would be in pig farrowing houses. Painfully, now we know. Here are some of the highlights and comments from numerous seminars and conversations about PED on just the first day of WPX 2014. 7,000,000 dead piglets. PED infects the sows, who typically pass the virus to their piglets through manure and none-to-nose contact. If the sows have had no previous exposure, they are unable to impart immunity to pigs through their colostrum. The virus unabatedly destroys the lining of the pigs gut, causing severe diarrhea and dehydration. For newborn piglets, that’s almost always deadly. Howard Hill, president of the National Pork Producer’s Council, says incidence estimates from Minnesota are that half of the U.S. sow herd has been infected in the last year alone. With 6,000,000 sows, that means 3,000,000 have had PED. While some sows lose 100% of their piglets, others survive, and on average the loss is 2.7 pigs per sow her year. Multiply that out, and the loss to PED is about 7,000,000 piglets, or 10% of the pig crop in the past year. About 1,300,000 pigs died from PED in January 2014 alone. “We can make up for some of the loss by better performance of the ones that survive, or less of other diseases,” says Hill. “And we can feed the survivors to heavier weights to make up for some of the tonnage loss.”
Good news! It’s slowing down. There is good news about PED, and this might be the best example. There have been fewer reported occurrences of the disease in recent weeks. Like many viral diseases, incidence is always higher in the winter months – viruses thrive on cold. “The fact that number of cases is declining now is good news,” says Tom Burkgren, a veterinarian with the American Association of Swine Veterinarians. “What we don’t know is if it will pick back up again when we get back to cold weather. On some farms, just when you think you got through a PED outbreak and can relax, mortality goes back up again 8-9 weeks later. We’ve got some herds that have been fighting a PED infection since January.” We know that getting immunity in an entire sow herd is important, he continues. “We’ve seen herds where the pigs from one sow will be OK, but the crate right next to her will have 30% loss of pigs. We have to get all the sows immune, and do good clean-up between farrowing groups. We may have to clean the farrowing pens better, and let a farrowing room dry out and sit empty longer between groups of sows.” Vaccines coming. There is one on the market, and more are in development and could be available by fall of 2014, says Burkgren. They are still in testing stage, and they are showing moderate success. But they are not the total or final answer. The best answer now is controlled exposure of sows to the live virus to build herd immunity, then controlled traffic onto each farm and barn, and excellent biosecurity measures. Like nothing before. Burkgren says one estimate he has seen shows just how concentrated and virulent the PED virus is: If you took one gram of PED-infected pig feces (about the size of the eraser on a pencil) and diluted it in 24,000 gallons of water, then gave that water to pigs, it would still make them sick. “We haven’t seen anything like this one before,” he says. Still, he says, there is no food safety issue or human health issue associated with PED.
China connection?
The best guess is that this virus somehow found its way to North America from China. “We can only speculate about this,” says NPPC chief veterinarian Liz Wagstrom. “But the genetic makeup of the virus is of Chinese origin. There is just so much traffic from China with all the trade we do with them, it’s easy to see how it could happen.” There are two strains of PED seen in the U.S., and neither evolved here, she says. How much is it costing us? If PED kills 7,000,000 baby pigs, the loss is the margin those pigs would have profited over variable costs, says Dale Polson, a veterinarian for Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica. If you put that number at as little as $50 per pig, the industry loss is at least $350,000,000. How it feels to a farmer. Jay Gruber is the production manager for Northwind Pork in Indiana. Northwind has three sow farms totaling 6,500 sows, and all three have been through PED since last November. “With the first farm, I got a call on a Sunday afternoon that the pigs in one farrowing room had loose stools,” says Gruber. “By the very next day, it was in 20 rooms. For about two weeks, we lost just about every pig born. If they were one or two days old, they died within a day or two from the dehydration. The older pigs lingered longer, and some of them lived through it. ”
By the end of two weeks, Gruber had exposed sows in gestation to the virus, and those sows were able to pass immunity to the pigs. The losses slowed, then stopped. On the second and third Northwind farms to contract PED, Gruber says they had learned how to control exposure and get immunity in the sows, and pig losses were not nearly as severe. “With each outbreak, we got better,” he says. “I think the lesson from us is that you can contract PED, and get through it.” Many unknowns. There was a report recently that a farm in Indiana re-broke with a bout of PED, after it was thought that all sows had acquired immunity in the first outbreak. But we really don’t know enough about PED to say for sure what is happening on PED farms, says Dane Goede, a University of Minnesota veterinary graduate student who studies the incidence of the disease. “I can’t say that I’m surprised that PED would come back a second time on a farm,” he says. “We don’t know enough to say if it is a re-break on that farm, or maybe the first break never really went away. This disease hits each farm differently. On some, immunity builds and PED goes away. On others, it lingers. At this point, we just don’t know what makes the difference.” - Agriculture.
Ms. Apricot seawall near the gates set to work from the start on Saturday, she found the gate of a dead fish inside the waters. "Listen to others, on Friday morning when he saw a lot of fish like dying, ups and downs, and later into the evening began to appear a large dead fish float to the surface of all." Ms. Yu said. The next day (Sunday), she saw the water is packed full of dead fish, and later was sailing to salvage.
Incident waters inside the gate, next to Xiamen Park Bo Yuan, the waters in the middle pulled two nets. Ms. introduction, when dead fish fishing boat is mainly outside the network, and from Na Liangdao network to the gate of this area is not cleaned up. Yesterday afternoon, the Herald reporter just went to the shore, it smelled very heavy stench. "These days it rained, so the taste is a little faded a little, it is stinking badly before Otherwise, we can not even open the window to work here." Ms. Yu said.
At this point, the water has almost no large tracts of dead fish, but near the shore of a corner, or the distribution of dense piece. These fish heads all look about the same size, there are twenty or thirty centimeters long, death after exposure, have all yellow smelly. Rough estimate, there are thousands of dead fish floating on the water. To this, Ms. deliberately hit 110, "but there is no one came to clean up." - SOHU. [Translated]
Tampere Region Economic Development, Transport and the Environment for the attention of the fish came on Wednesday, the death is lower. The dead fish are ELY-center release, the same area as last time, ie the northern part of the lake, which Tykölänjärvi drops of malt in water.
Pirkanmaa Centre for Economic Development has been taking Tykölänjärvestä new samples on Thursday morning.
The earlier death of the fish samples taken from the results is not clear of anything that could explain the causes of death of fish. Water lake found only small amounts of DEET mosquito repellent, or a an active substance.
Concentration, however, was so small that it is not enough to kill the fish. The new results of the sampling will be completed early next week.
Water quality fish deaths within poor
Preceding the aftermath of the death of fish in the northern part of the lake water quality is poor and oxygen near the end. Elsewhere in the lake last week, water samples taken, the situation is normal.
Typically, the fish avoid areas with poor oxygen situation.
- In order to fish deaths, improve the water quality in the region, rainfall should become really abundant. Tykölänjärveen drops to only a few small stream, and longer lasting drought due to water exchange is very weak, says Ms Heidi Heino to the ELY Centre Bulletin. - YLE. [Translated]
People walking along or paddling on the Saluda River on Wednesday were greeted by hundreds of dead blueback herring, the result of a rare early season fish kill.
The cause and the number of fish killed weren’t entirely clear Wednesday afternoon.
One possible cause: A large school of herring might have been sucked into the Lake Murray dam’s hydroelectric turbines and flushed into the river, according to Ross Self, chief of fisheries for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.
S.C. Electric and Gas, which manages the lake and the hydro plant, also tested the dam spillway early Wednesday. Congaree Riverkeeper Bill Stangler says the timing of the kill and the spillway test makes that a likely cause.
Whichever the case, the cause seems to be related to operation of the dam or spillway, not to the water quality issues that often result in late summer fish kills, Stangler said. - The State.
Fishermen from the village of Harriers Association in the Cantera Peninsula in San Juan, were met with a sea of dead fish scene have seen in the past. Some thought it was an isolated event, but now the event is repeated two to three times a year.
The Laguna San José has become the ultimate destination of thousands of fish who apparently die from lack of oxygen due to high pollution. Fishermen say that it is solid waste discharges and an accumulation of trash that has changed the topography of the shore.
"It looked like a garden of white flowers on the lagoon. The (last) Friday began ... They continued down to the stream and continued to accumulate on the shore. Die from lack of oxygen, "said the fisherman José A. Matos Peace, 67 years old and a resident of Barrio Obrero.
Many fishermen felt that they could avoid killing fish by deep cleaning the Caño Martín Peña. Among the dead fish had bream, snook, tarpon and other species.
"In recent years there has occurred a more ongoing basis. This is due to contamination, "said the fisherman Felix Bravo, 24, a resident of the community especially Boston Braves. - El Nuevodia. [Translated]
The case of the discovery of dozens of chickens died suddenly in Hamlet Ngijo, Valley Village, District Babadan, Ponorogo began to spread to a number of other sub-district. If previously only in District Babadan directly adjacent to the District Dolopo, Madison County, this time extends to Lengkong Village, District Sukorejo, as well as in JL Jola - Joli, District Ponogoro.
However, so far only is manual handling and sporadic. Besides quarantined, spraying in the chicken coop, and given vitamins for healthy chickens belonging to avoid contracting the H5N1 virus or Avian Influenza (AI) it.
If earlier, dozens of chickens died suddenly in Hamlet Ngijo, this time started to expand into Hamlet Jajar, Valley Village, District Babadan. In fact, the sudden death of chickens have already reached hundreds of tails.
One chicken farmer, Sunarto (35) Hamlet Jajar, Valley Village, District Babadan said since the last few days, it's almost a hundred village chickens died suddenly. - Tribun News. [Translated]
Thousands of fish have been found dead in a river near Uttoxeter and an environmental investigation is now underway to confirm the cause.
Angler Glen Pointon posted a tweet with a picture showing several dead fish on a riverbank near the River Tean.
He said: “It’s one of the saddest moments in fishing I have ever seen, a river I often fish called the river Tean, a tributary of the Dove has been polluted over the last 24 hours and killed every single bit of life in the river.
“Thousands of trout fry, grayling, huge trout, stone loach, bull heads are lying in their thousands all over the bed of the river. The Environmental Agency are there now. Gutted is not the word.”
An Environment Agency spokesman said: “We are currently dealing with a fish kill on the River Tean.
“The incident was reported to us yesterday evening and our officers attended the scene shortly after.
“Today we are continuing to investigate the cause, checking and taking samples on the river upstream and downstream of where the incident occurred.
“We are still assessing how many fish have died but early estimates are in excess of 1000.” - Uttoxeter News.
They mistrust each other’s science. They couldn’t be more different in strategies or budgets. But beekeepers, farmers and seed-sellers alike agree on this one thing: this could be the do-or-die year for a controversial corn-seed coating that’s been banned in Europe and is under close scrutiny by Canadian regulators.
Apiarists say neonicotinoids — a class of pesticides similar to nicotine applied to seeds to keep specific insects from destroying key crops — are poisoning bees. The seed and chemical companies (the ownership of both is intertwined) say neonics are stringently tested and it’s not their products killing bees. The only thin strand connecting the two sides is the conviction that any repeat of last year’s bee deaths in Ontario could lead to runaway public backlash and a federal crackdown on neonics. Federal regulator Pest Management Regulatory Agency has already mandated tougher rules for this planting season in an effort to stanch bee losses. It’s also planning an interim report for 2015, even as the European Union has already banned use of neonics.
“This is a critical year. We understand that there’s a lot of public concern,” says Paul Thiel, vice-president in charge of innovation and public affairs at Bayer CropScience Canada that produces both the seed treatment and a new lubricant to keep neonic dust from getting into the air and soil. “It’s an important year that we can demonstrate that modern agriculture and modern beekeeping can co-exist without one having undue impact on the other,” Thiel said. That might already be too late because hives near cornfields have already been damaged, says Albert DeVries, whose beekeeping partner is Chris Hiemstra and co-owner of about 1,500 hives (about 4.5 million bees) near Aylmer. Neither beekeepers nor chemical companies are keen on hearing the other group’s advice about how to manage their businesses, DeVries says. “We are David up against Goliath,” DeVries notes. “But David did win.” - Chatham Daily News.
TONS Of Dead Fish Found In A Lake And River In Gunzenhausen, Germany
 |
| First, the small white fish died, but now even large fish have been found dead. Erwin Schwab |
A mass death of fish in the About Head West on Altmuehlsee troubled sport fishermen and authorities. It is feared that the problem with the announced increase in temperature exacerbated the weekend. Already, up to six tonnes of bream, perch and pike but also have been found dead in the river.
The sports fishermen of Absberger fishing club are completely dissolved, because they feel the effects of fish dying immediately. Erwin Schwab Frickenfelden is fishing overseer of the association. He complained that the authorities "to watch for six weeks and do nothing." The focus of his criticism is the Water Authority Ansbach: "It could do something, but does not matter."
It is about the section of the Altmühl About Head west from the outlet of the lake in Altmühltherme Schlungenhof up to the inflow into the tunnel. In this approximately three-kilometer area Schwab and his fishermen friends have first determined the death of small white fish, in the last two weeks but also large fish are spotted lying dead in the water, and was taken from the waters. "There are now Zander of up to 90 centimeters long while," said Erwin Schwab excited. Chance of pike were also among the dead fish.
The sports fishermen of ASV Absberg every day on the spot. You have the waters leased from the three mill owners who had received awarded as part of the Lakes construction by the State of the fishing rights. 300 meters before the tunnel inlet Schwab took pictures to document the extent of the fish kill. He was there when the fishermen 85 dead walleye fished out of the over head at the level of Lüther factory ten days ago.
Having Mayor Karl-Heinz Fitz informed, concerted action has started last Saturday, at the fire department, the police, the Water Authority and the Fisheries Association of Middle Franconia were involved. The firemen were rolling with their pumps to the water, thus improves its oxygen content. The result was obvious lean, because the oxygen content has measurably improved only slightly.
The fish are starved
Thomas Liepold, the manager of the Water Management Office at Altmuehlsee in Schlungenhof has registered a light fish kills in over head in the spring of 2013. At that time, mainly Gyster, six to eight inches large bream, died. The instantaneous death does not take the officer to be taken lightly, but really satisfied with the already finished inspection of fish by the fishing association, it can not be. While it was found no virus, but it is noticed that the fish had no food in the stomach, and are therefore simply starved. - Nord Bayern. [Translated]
Masses Of Dead Fish Wash Up Again In Galveston, Texas, United States
 |
| Photo: Alana Larson |
It's happened again. More dead fish have washed up in Galveston County.
On Friday, we learned of more dead fish near the Kemah Bridge at Todville Road in Seabrook. This come nearly two weeks after fish first washed ashore near the same spot.
At the time, Texas Parks and Wildlife says the shad or bait fish are likely showing up dead because of oxygen depletion.
When the fish washed ashore the last time, within a couple of days, they had decomposed and were for the most part gone. - ABC13.
Hundreds Of Dead Fish Wash Up On A Beach In New Jersey, Unted States
 |
| Fish kill in Cape May Point, New Jersey on June 6, 2014. (credit: Jo Armstrong) |
Officials are investigating what caused hundreds of fish to wash ashore along the beach of a Jersey shore town.
According to State environmental officials, hundreds of fish washed up Friday morning in Cape May Point.
According to Larry Hajna of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, at this point, there is no reason to believe that the dead fish are washing up as the result of any environmental issue.
A preliminary investigation points to a broken fishing boat net that released the fish into the ocean in the southern portion of the peninsula.
 |
| Fish kill in Cape May Point, New Jersey on June 6, 2014. (credit: Jo Armstrong) |
At this point, DEP officials said there are no plans to clean up the fish or gather them from the water. They said whatever is left on the shore will be washed back out with the tide.
There is no word on how far out to sea the fishing boat was.
The discovery is not impacting beach operations.
The investigation is ongoing.
WATCH: Hundreds Of Dead Fish Wash Ashore In North Cape May.
- CBS.
2.4 MILLION Bees Found Mysteriously Dead In A Caidian District, China
 |
| Pictured: beekeeper checking his hives. |
Yesterday morning, reporters in Caidian Yu Yin Zhen Yang Village, the two groups met outside the room beekeepers yellow soldiers arrayed hundreds of beehives, concrete floor next to the dead bee dense, weed also visible piles of dead bees . Huang Bing, he raised 130 boxes of Italian bees, four months after the canola flower to collect nectar Xiantao, before January return Yuxian, arrived in early June to prepare Dawu, take honey from the bars, only to depart yet Italian bees large number of deaths. About a week ago, there is sporadic Italian bees died Huangbing Gang started yet did not care, then more dead more Italian bees, now he had been dead for eighty percent of Italian bees.
Huang Bing surrounding beekeepers have encountered the same problem. Yang Village thirty-four mile away from the old Village Yonganzhen Caidian, Zhu Yuan beekeeping for more than ten years.朱玉安 said, each box there are about 28,000 Italian bees began to emerge from the week before dead bees, and has now lost Qi Cheng. He said, according to the loss of 20,000 per case basis, he lost up to 2.4 million Italian bees. "If we can arrive Dawu bullion flowers, 120 boxes of honey bees can collect 6000 pounds!" Zhu Yuan sad to say, his family lost several million.
According to statistics, around the damaged beekeepers reached 13, reaching more than 1,000 beehives box, all yearn to find out why beekeepers Italian bees dead.
Yesterday afternoon, the Bureau of Animal Husbandry Caidian technology promotion stations 周科长 interview with reporters, said that after receiving the reflected beekeepers, Huazhong Agricultural University has invited experts on-site investigation, experts believe that the suspected pesticide poisoning. He also said that if you want to find out the cause of death, to the dead bees to the Fujian Institute of Animal dissection laboratory.
Beekeepers say the recent few flowering plants and vegetables, wild flowers can not play pesticides, only a large area planted near cabbage flower, suspect with this. Caidian technology promotion stations 周科长 Animal Husbandry Bureau, said there are beekeepers believe that excessive pesticide cabbage flowers can be reflected to the District Agricultural Bureau. - Ifeng. [Translated]
7 MILLION Piglets Dead During The Past Year From Disease In The United States
There are hundreds of things to see, do, and talk about at the World Pork Expo this week in Des Moines, Iowa. But one subject eventually surfaces in virtually every conversation: Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus, or PED. The nasty nature of this new disease has everyone talking. A year ago at WPX, PED was a blip that had most pork producer’s attention, but no one could foresee just how quickly it would spread to infect half of all the sows in the U.S. And no one knew how destructive it would be in pig farrowing houses. Painfully, now we know. Here are some of the highlights and comments from numerous seminars and conversations about PED on just the first day of WPX 2014. 7,000,000 dead piglets. PED infects the sows, who typically pass the virus to their piglets through manure and none-to-nose contact. If the sows have had no previous exposure, they are unable to impart immunity to pigs through their colostrum. The virus unabatedly destroys the lining of the pigs gut, causing severe diarrhea and dehydration. For newborn piglets, that’s almost always deadly. Howard Hill, president of the National Pork Producer’s Council, says incidence estimates from Minnesota are that half of the U.S. sow herd has been infected in the last year alone. With 6,000,000 sows, that means 3,000,000 have had PED. While some sows lose 100% of their piglets, others survive, and on average the loss is 2.7 pigs per sow her year. Multiply that out, and the loss to PED is about 7,000,000 piglets, or 10% of the pig crop in the past year. About 1,300,000 pigs died from PED in January 2014 alone. “We can make up for some of the loss by better performance of the ones that survive, or less of other diseases,” says Hill. “And we can feed the survivors to heavier weights to make up for some of the tonnage loss.”
Good news! It’s slowing down. There is good news about PED, and this might be the best example. There have been fewer reported occurrences of the disease in recent weeks. Like many viral diseases, incidence is always higher in the winter months – viruses thrive on cold. “The fact that number of cases is declining now is good news,” says Tom Burkgren, a veterinarian with the American Association of Swine Veterinarians. “What we don’t know is if it will pick back up again when we get back to cold weather. On some farms, just when you think you got through a PED outbreak and can relax, mortality goes back up again 8-9 weeks later. We’ve got some herds that have been fighting a PED infection since January.” We know that getting immunity in an entire sow herd is important, he continues. “We’ve seen herds where the pigs from one sow will be OK, but the crate right next to her will have 30% loss of pigs. We have to get all the sows immune, and do good clean-up between farrowing groups. We may have to clean the farrowing pens better, and let a farrowing room dry out and sit empty longer between groups of sows.” Vaccines coming. There is one on the market, and more are in development and could be available by fall of 2014, says Burkgren. They are still in testing stage, and they are showing moderate success. But they are not the total or final answer. The best answer now is controlled exposure of sows to the live virus to build herd immunity, then controlled traffic onto each farm and barn, and excellent biosecurity measures. Like nothing before. Burkgren says one estimate he has seen shows just how concentrated and virulent the PED virus is: If you took one gram of PED-infected pig feces (about the size of the eraser on a pencil) and diluted it in 24,000 gallons of water, then gave that water to pigs, it would still make them sick. “We haven’t seen anything like this one before,” he says. Still, he says, there is no food safety issue or human health issue associated with PED.
China connection?
The best guess is that this virus somehow found its way to North America from China. “We can only speculate about this,” says NPPC chief veterinarian Liz Wagstrom. “But the genetic makeup of the virus is of Chinese origin. There is just so much traffic from China with all the trade we do with them, it’s easy to see how it could happen.” There are two strains of PED seen in the U.S., and neither evolved here, she says. How much is it costing us? If PED kills 7,000,000 baby pigs, the loss is the margin those pigs would have profited over variable costs, says Dale Polson, a veterinarian for Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica. If you put that number at as little as $50 per pig, the industry loss is at least $350,000,000. How it feels to a farmer. Jay Gruber is the production manager for Northwind Pork in Indiana. Northwind has three sow farms totaling 6,500 sows, and all three have been through PED since last November. “With the first farm, I got a call on a Sunday afternoon that the pigs in one farrowing room had loose stools,” says Gruber. “By the very next day, it was in 20 rooms. For about two weeks, we lost just about every pig born. If they were one or two days old, they died within a day or two from the dehydration. The older pigs lingered longer, and some of them lived through it. ”
By the end of two weeks, Gruber had exposed sows in gestation to the virus, and those sows were able to pass immunity to the pigs. The losses slowed, then stopped. On the second and third Northwind farms to contract PED, Gruber says they had learned how to control exposure and get immunity in the sows, and pig losses were not nearly as severe. “With each outbreak, we got better,” he says. “I think the lesson from us is that you can contract PED, and get through it.” Many unknowns. There was a report recently that a farm in Indiana re-broke with a bout of PED, after it was thought that all sows had acquired immunity in the first outbreak. But we really don’t know enough about PED to say for sure what is happening on PED farms, says Dane Goede, a University of Minnesota veterinary graduate student who studies the incidence of the disease. “I can’t say that I’m surprised that PED would come back a second time on a farm,” he says. “We don’t know enough to say if it is a re-break on that farm, or maybe the first break never really went away. This disease hits each farm differently. On some, immunity builds and PED goes away. On others, it lingers. At this point, we just don’t know what makes the difference.” - Agriculture.
Thousands Of Dead Fish Wash Up In Xiamen, China
Ms. Apricot seawall near the gates set to work from the start on Saturday, she found the gate of a dead fish inside the waters. "Listen to others, on Friday morning when he saw a lot of fish like dying, ups and downs, and later into the evening began to appear a large dead fish float to the surface of all." Ms. Yu said. The next day (Sunday), she saw the water is packed full of dead fish, and later was sailing to salvage.
Incident waters inside the gate, next to Xiamen Park Bo Yuan, the waters in the middle pulled two nets. Ms. introduction, when dead fish fishing boat is mainly outside the network, and from Na Liangdao network to the gate of this area is not cleaned up. Yesterday afternoon, the Herald reporter just went to the shore, it smelled very heavy stench. "These days it rained, so the taste is a little faded a little, it is stinking badly before Otherwise, we can not even open the window to work here." Ms. Yu said.
At this point, the water has almost no large tracts of dead fish, but near the shore of a corner, or the distribution of dense piece. These fish heads all look about the same size, there are twenty or thirty centimeters long, death after exposure, have all yellow smelly. Rough estimate, there are thousands of dead fish floating on the water. To this, Ms. deliberately hit 110, "but there is no one came to clean up." - SOHU. [Translated]
Massive Die-Off Of Fish In A Lake In Valkeakoski, Finland
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| Dead fish on the north end of Tykölänjärven 05/06/2014 Photo: Pirkanmaa Centre for Economic Development |
Tampere Region Economic Development, Transport and the Environment for the attention of the fish came on Wednesday, the death is lower. The dead fish are ELY-center release, the same area as last time, ie the northern part of the lake, which Tykölänjärvi drops of malt in water.
Pirkanmaa Centre for Economic Development has been taking Tykölänjärvestä new samples on Thursday morning.
The earlier death of the fish samples taken from the results is not clear of anything that could explain the causes of death of fish. Water lake found only small amounts of DEET mosquito repellent, or a an active substance.
Concentration, however, was so small that it is not enough to kill the fish. The new results of the sampling will be completed early next week.
Water quality fish deaths within poor
Preceding the aftermath of the death of fish in the northern part of the lake water quality is poor and oxygen near the end. Elsewhere in the lake last week, water samples taken, the situation is normal.
Typically, the fish avoid areas with poor oxygen situation.
- In order to fish deaths, improve the water quality in the region, rainfall should become really abundant. Tykölänjärveen drops to only a few small stream, and longer lasting drought due to water exchange is very weak, says Ms Heidi Heino to the ELY Centre Bulletin. - YLE. [Translated]
Hundreds Of Dead Fish Line The Banks Of The Saluda River In South Carolina, United States
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| An egret rest on the rocks on the Saluda River. Photo: C. ALUKA BERRY |
People walking along or paddling on the Saluda River on Wednesday were greeted by hundreds of dead blueback herring, the result of a rare early season fish kill.
The cause and the number of fish killed weren’t entirely clear Wednesday afternoon.
One possible cause: A large school of herring might have been sucked into the Lake Murray dam’s hydroelectric turbines and flushed into the river, according to Ross Self, chief of fisheries for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.
S.C. Electric and Gas, which manages the lake and the hydro plant, also tested the dam spillway early Wednesday. Congaree Riverkeeper Bill Stangler says the timing of the kill and the spillway test makes that a likely cause.
Whichever the case, the cause seems to be related to operation of the dam or spillway, not to the water quality issues that often result in late summer fish kills, Stangler said. - The State.
Mass Die-Off Of Fish Found In A Lagoon In San Juan, Puerto Rico
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| Many fishermen felt that they could avoid killing fish by deep cleaning the Caño Martín Peña. (francisco.rodriguez @ gfrmedia.com) |
The Laguna San José has become the ultimate destination of thousands of fish who apparently die from lack of oxygen due to high pollution. Fishermen say that it is solid waste discharges and an accumulation of trash that has changed the topography of the shore.
"It looked like a garden of white flowers on the lagoon. The (last) Friday began ... They continued down to the stream and continued to accumulate on the shore. Die from lack of oxygen, "said the fisherman José A. Matos Peace, 67 years old and a resident of Barrio Obrero.
Many fishermen felt that they could avoid killing fish by deep cleaning the Caño Martín Peña. Among the dead fish had bream, snook, tarpon and other species.
"In recent years there has occurred a more ongoing basis. This is due to contamination, "said the fisherman Felix Bravo, 24, a resident of the community especially Boston Braves. - El Nuevodia. [Translated]
Hundreds Of Birds Die Suddenly Due To Avian Flu In Ponorogo, Indonesia
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| Spraying - One of the chicken breeders in Dusun Align, Valley Village, Sub Babadan, Ponorogo regency began to implement penyeprotan disinfectant at cages chicken is widely ION prevent bird flu attack, on Wednesday (06/04/2014). |
The case of the discovery of dozens of chickens died suddenly in Hamlet Ngijo, Valley Village, District Babadan, Ponorogo began to spread to a number of other sub-district. If previously only in District Babadan directly adjacent to the District Dolopo, Madison County, this time extends to Lengkong Village, District Sukorejo, as well as in JL Jola - Joli, District Ponogoro.
However, so far only is manual handling and sporadic. Besides quarantined, spraying in the chicken coop, and given vitamins for healthy chickens belonging to avoid contracting the H5N1 virus or Avian Influenza (AI) it.
If earlier, dozens of chickens died suddenly in Hamlet Ngijo, this time started to expand into Hamlet Jajar, Valley Village, District Babadan. In fact, the sudden death of chickens have already reached hundreds of tails.
One chicken farmer, Sunarto (35) Hamlet Jajar, Valley Village, District Babadan said since the last few days, it's almost a hundred village chickens died suddenly. - Tribun News. [Translated]
Thousands Of Dead Fish Found In A River In Uttoxeter, England
Thousands of fish have been found dead in a river near Uttoxeter and an environmental investigation is now underway to confirm the cause.
Angler Glen Pointon posted a tweet with a picture showing several dead fish on a riverbank near the River Tean.
He said: “It’s one of the saddest moments in fishing I have ever seen, a river I often fish called the river Tean, a tributary of the Dove has been polluted over the last 24 hours and killed every single bit of life in the river.
“Thousands of trout fry, grayling, huge trout, stone loach, bull heads are lying in their thousands all over the bed of the river. The Environmental Agency are there now. Gutted is not the word.”
An Environment Agency spokesman said: “We are currently dealing with a fish kill on the River Tean.
“The incident was reported to us yesterday evening and our officers attended the scene shortly after.
“Today we are continuing to investigate the cause, checking and taking samples on the river upstream and downstream of where the incident occurred.
“We are still assessing how many fish have died but early estimates are in excess of 1000.” - Uttoxeter News.
Die-Off Of Bees Found Near Hives In Ontario, Canada
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| Beekeeper Amsey McEown shows off a colony of bees as he prepares to ship
hundreds of hives to New Brunswick from an apiary near Aylmer, Ontario on Monday June 2, 2014. DeVries says only 10 to 20 percent of the pollen collecting worker bees have been returning to their colonies. CRAIG GLOVER/The London Free Press/QMI Agency |
They mistrust each other’s science. They couldn’t be more different in strategies or budgets. But beekeepers, farmers and seed-sellers alike agree on this one thing: this could be the do-or-die year for a controversial corn-seed coating that’s been banned in Europe and is under close scrutiny by Canadian regulators.
Apiarists say neonicotinoids — a class of pesticides similar to nicotine applied to seeds to keep specific insects from destroying key crops — are poisoning bees. The seed and chemical companies (the ownership of both is intertwined) say neonics are stringently tested and it’s not their products killing bees. The only thin strand connecting the two sides is the conviction that any repeat of last year’s bee deaths in Ontario could lead to runaway public backlash and a federal crackdown on neonics. Federal regulator Pest Management Regulatory Agency has already mandated tougher rules for this planting season in an effort to stanch bee losses. It’s also planning an interim report for 2015, even as the European Union has already banned use of neonics.
“This is a critical year. We understand that there’s a lot of public concern,” says Paul Thiel, vice-president in charge of innovation and public affairs at Bayer CropScience Canada that produces both the seed treatment and a new lubricant to keep neonic dust from getting into the air and soil. “It’s an important year that we can demonstrate that modern agriculture and modern beekeeping can co-exist without one having undue impact on the other,” Thiel said. That might already be too late because hives near cornfields have already been damaged, says Albert DeVries, whose beekeeping partner is Chris Hiemstra and co-owner of about 1,500 hives (about 4.5 million bees) near Aylmer. Neither beekeepers nor chemical companies are keen on hearing the other group’s advice about how to manage their businesses, DeVries says. “We are David up against Goliath,” DeVries notes. “But David did win.” - Chatham Daily News.
