MASS ANIMAL DIE-OFFS: Global Cooling Continues Relentlessly - 8,900 Farm Animals Killed By Cold Weather In Vietnam! [VIDEO]

A buffalo is found dead due to the chill in Lao Cai Province.
© VNA/VNS

January 29, 2016 - VIETNAM - The number of farm animals killed in the record-low cold snap since last week rocketed to more than 8,900 - 11 times the figure released two days earlier, agriculture officials said on Wednesday.

Mountainous Son La Province replaced Quang Ninh Province in the previous report to become the hardest-hit locality with 2,756 animals frozen to death. This accounted for 38 per cent of the total.

Dead cattle, goat, horses and pigs were found across seven communes in Son La, one of which was Van Ho Commune, where snow fell for the first time in decades.

The northwestern province of Dien Bien was the second hardest-hit, with 641 out of 7,134 farm animals killed.



WATCH: Vietnamese farmers struggle in cold snap.

The number of animals lost in the freezing weather this year was three times the number recorded in early 2014 (about 2,000). However, it didn't come close to hitting the record 210,000 farm animals killed in 2008, another uncharacteristically cold year.

Son La Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Director Ha Quyet Nghi told the Phap Luat Viet Nam (Viet Nam Law) newspaper yesterday that the number was not likely to stop there.

"We are still sending officers down to each locality to track down the exact figure," Nghi said.

"After the work is finalised, we will come up with plans to provide support for the affected residents based on state regulations".

Except for Lao Cai Province, which had damages of VND5 billion (US$222,200), there aren't any official records on the estimated losses of other localities caught in the cold spell.

Temperatures in the northern region were expected to rise quickly from yesterday to an average of 10 degrees Celsius. But the Department of Livestock under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development still asked northern provinces to work quickly to protect their animals from the cold and avoid further losses.

Another report by the Central Steering Committee on Disaster Prevention and Rescue on Wednesday evening showed that 10,725ha of paddy fields and vegetables were destroyed in the cold snap, while more than 80,000ha of forest were covered in snow. - Viet Nam News.

MASS BIRD/ANIMAL DIE-OFF: Over 170,000 Birds And Over 4,000 Livestock Killed From Flooding In Odisha, India!

October 24, 2013 - INDIA - Apart from 44 human lives, the twin calamities of cyclone and floods had taken a toll on 4,393 animals and 1,70,970 birds including chickens in Odisha, official sources said today.

"1,487 big animals including cattle and 2,906 small animals like goats were killed in the cyclone and floods," Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) P K Mohapatra said.

Ahead of the calamity, the state government had evacuated 31,062 cattle, but it was not possible to shift all animals and birds from five km of the sea shore, he said.

Replying a question, the SRC said 533.25 MT of cattle feed have been distributed in the 17 calamity hit districts.

Animal and bird carcasses were disposed by volunteers of Anandmarg, Fisheries and Animal Resource Minister Debi Prasad Mishra said, adding 13 mobile teams comprising veterinary doctors have been sent to the affected districts to monitor the health of cattle and birds.

This apart, Mishra said the state government has set up 224 mobile medical teams which have so far treated 10,552 animals in different districts. - Business Standard.

MASS ANIMAL DIE-OFF: 100 Sheep Suddenly And Mysteriously Die In Asir Province, Saudi Arabia?!

October 21, 2013 - SAUDI ARABIA - Salman Sabaan Miteb, a shepherd from Tihamah Qahatan Al-Farsha, 200 kilometers east of Asir province was surprised by the mysterious death of 100 of his sheep.

File photo.

He said that there is no branch of the Ministry of Agriculture in Tihamah Qahatan, Asir. He had notified the ministry in Abha but there was no response. However, a committee from the Civil Defense Al-Farsha Police and Health Department came to the scene and reported to the province’s governorate. Investigations are now under way.

“Some government authorities are negligent. There is insufficient follow up on livestock concerns and long delays in treating sick ones,” said Hamdan Rahi, another citizen of Tihamah.

He said he sympathizes with Salman because he depends wholly on livestock for his income. He pointed out that citizens in the area are going to file a lawsuit against entities that fail to carry out their duties, and demand financial compensations for the sheep that died.

A source in the Asir agricultural branch said they had sent a veterinarian to Tihamah to bring samples for testing in the ministry’s laboratories in Riyadh.

Press spokesman for the Asir Municipality, Mohammad Al-Bishri said the Ministry of Agriculture should be held accountable for the death of the livestock.

A businessman in the province said he is ready to help Salman with compensation of his loss in the near future. - Arab News.

GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS: Mass Animal Die-Off - Thousands Of Cattle Have Died Due To Drought In Matamoros, Mexico!

September 02, 2013 - MEXICO - Up to 15 percent of the cattle herd in Matamoros has died because of the drought and rains that occur at this time are not enough to feed them, said Victor Garcia Garcia, President of the local livestock Association.

"This was nothing but a soft drink, the cows are thirsty, was just a breath though if it continues raining we would benefit much dams are still empty", said.

He explained that to solve water supply to meet the needs of livestock require 6 to 8 inches of rain water and past rainfall were barely two inches.

Farmers representative mentioned that they have a record of 18,000 head of cattle, although it confirmed the loss is from an average of two thousand, five hundred animals.

He stressed that is true become supports to solve the problems faced are not enough the serious situation occurring. - Hoytamaulipas. [Translated]

MASS ANIMAL DIE-OFF: 250,000 Alpacas Found Dead From "Freezing Weather" In Puno, Peru - State Of Emergency Declared In Seven Provinces!

September 01, 2013 - PERU -  President Ollanta Humala announced that seven provinces of Puno will be declared in emergency due to heavy snowfall - which have left hundreds of families isolated and more than 250 000 dead alpacas.

(Photo: Provincial Municipality Carabaya)

The president flew over the areas affected by the low temperatures and falling snow, the worst in a decade .

Then signed the standard state of emergency declared in the provinces of Carabaya, Sandia, Lampa, San Antonio de Putina, Melgar, Puno and El Collao.

Humala, who was accompanied by Minister of Housing René Cornejo , delivered 10,000 blankets, medicines, food and other items.

Also 13 000 bags of oats and medicines for animals. He also announced that he will return tomorrow to Puno with more help for the affected population.

Earlier, the Civil Defense deputy regional government of Puno, Percy Quispe, said it has ordered the suspension of classes in 16 schools in the province and state of immobility of the hospital staff. - Elcomercio. [Translated]

MASS ANIMAL DIE-OFF: Dozens Of Dead Seals Found On Prince Edward Island Beach In Canada?!

January 29, 2013 - CANADA - The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is investigating after dozens of dead seals were found on a beach and in the waters off Prince Edward Island.

Fisheries officers have sent samples of the dead animals to a wildlife pathologist at the Atlantic Veterinary College.

A group of students from the Charlottetown-based Atlantic Veterinary College found as many as 50 dead seals over the weekend.

The students came upon the bloody carcasses of grey seals either dead or dying. Many of seals were pups.

DFO officers responded to the beach on Black Brook Road near Murray Harbour in the eastern part of the Island.

Fisheries officers have sent samples of the dead animals to Dr. Pierre-Yves Daoust, a wildlife pathologist at the veterinary college, who will perform the necropsies.

Daoust said the cause of death has not been determined.

Steve Hachey, communications adviser with DFO, said an investigation will determine whether the seals died of natural causes or were killed.

Hachey said charges could be laid under the Fisheries Act if test results confirm the seals were killed. - CBC News.

WATCH: Dozens of dead seals found off P.E.I. coast.

MASS ANIMAL DIE-OFF: Cold In China Kills About 180,000 Cattle, Threatens Power!

January 10, 2013 - CHINA - The coldest winter in decades is causing blizzards in northern China and threatens electric power supplies in the south where the government is not used to dealing with such freezing temperatures, China media said Wednesday.  About 180,000 cattle have died in the north while hundreds of emergency shelters have opened in southern China to help people who do not have adequate housing or heat to survive the below-average cold. 

Fishermen try to dig out a fishing boat trapped in ice in the Jiaozhou harbor in Qingdao,
in east China's Shandong province, on Jan. 5.(Photo: AP).

The National Meteorological Center reiterated Wednesday that southern China will be under heavier-than-normal snow, rain and freezing temperatures for the next few days, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. Shelters equipped with quilts, coats and food have opened in Hefei, capital of Anhui province.  "You can find shelters and aid stations for the elderly and homeless in all communities and villages in our district," Zou Zhongxian, a civil affairs official in the city's Luyang district, told Xinhua.  Record cold has struck India as well, and even the Middle East.  The fiercest winter storm to hit the Middle East in years brought a rare foot of snow to Jordan on Wednesday, caused fatal accidents in Lebanon and the West Bank, and disrupted traffic on the Suez Canal in Egypt. At least eight people have died across the region.  In Israel, snow fell outside Jerusalem, an unusual occurrence. Three feet of snow fell on Mount Hermon, and flakes were falling in Nazareth as well as in Galilee. Several roads were closed in northern Israel because of heavy snowfall. 

The Weather Underground reported that the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where New Delhi is located, has seen temperatures fall to a low of 35.4 degrees on Sunday, and the high temperature a few days before was 49.6, the coldest daily high in 44 years.  In China, freezing weather has sent temperatures diving to a national average of 25 degrees Fahrenheit since Nov. 20, the lowest average temperature in 28 years, says the China Meteorological Administration (CMA).  In China's frozen northeast, where the city of Harbin hosts a popular snow and ice festival each winter, temperatures over the same period averaged minus 5 degrees, a 43-year low, according to the CMA.  The CMA said ice had covered 10,500 square miles of the sea surface, the most expansive since 2008, when authorities began to collect ice data, and it said the ice coverage will likely continue to grow.  Blizzards were forecast for western regions along the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers, as well as the northern part of southern China. Similar cold weather hit China in the winter of 2008, when more than 120 people died.  China Southern Power Grid was working to melt ice on power lines to prevent electricity outages, Wang Xiaochun, the company's publicity manager, told Chinese state media.  About 1 million people in normally temperate south China have been going through unusually cold weather in recent days. - USA Today.

MASS ANIMAL DIE-OFF: Ranavirus Disease - 26 Turtles Mysteriously Die During the Past Few Months in West Virginia, America!

November 29, 2012 - UNITED STATES - In July, while walking near a small pond he had built on his farm near Clendenin, Bill Archibald spotted a pair of dead eastern box turtles in the brush. "I didn't think a whole lot about it at first," Archibald recalled, "but then I noticed other turtles in the same area acting kind of lethargic, with swelling around their eyes, lying in the same spot for days, and I started to wonder what was going on." When Archibald returned to his farm following a weeklong trip to Alaska, "every day that I walked up to the pond I'd find dead turtles." The mysterious deaths, which numbered 26 by the end of the summer, didn't sit well with Archibald, a graduate of the state Division of Natural Resources' Master Naturalist program, who had built the pond to enhance habitat for the frogs, salamanders and turtles living on his land. He emailed Doug Wood, a retired Department of Environmental Protection biologist who teaches several Master Naturalist classes.

Eastern Box Turtles.

"Bill sent me one of those unusual queries I get from time to time -- 'Hey, Doug, do you know what this is?' " Wood recalled. After consulting the Internet and some professional colleagues, Wood supplied Archibald with the contact information he believed could solve the mystery about what was killing the box turtles on his land. As it turned out, the turtle was infected with ranavirus -- an animal disease known to have caused large localized die-offs, mainly in populations of frogs, salamanders and other amphibians, in 25 states since 1997. In more recent years, the virus is known to have infected scattered populations of box turtles, which are reptiles, in several states. At Wood's suggestion, Archibald got in touch with Towson University (Md.) biology professor Richard Siegel, leader of a box turtle study at a highway construction site between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

Bill Archibald found more than two dozen dead or dying eastern
box turtles in the vicinity of his Clendenin area pond in recent
months. Through contacts made in naturalist classes, Archibald
 was put in touch with researchers who believe the deaths are
linked to ranavirus, an animal disease associated with large local
 die-offs of amphibians and certain turtle species. Image: Kenny Kemp.

There, local turtles were outfitted with radio transmitters and released in areas safe from blasting and heavy machinery. The study was designed to determine whether relocated turtles did better by being moved to a site six miles from the construction zone, or to an area just across a fence from the new highway site. But Siegel and his Towson colleagues found that an alarming number of turtles -- which can live to be 50 or older and normally have a 98 percent survival rate from year to year -- were dying at the relocation area near the construction site. Thirty-one of the 123 turtles outfitted with the transmitters and released there were found dead within a three-year period. Cars or construction equipment killed three of the turtles, but the rest were felled by disease, which turned out to be ranavirus in 27 cases. "Finding even one dead turtle is unusual," Siegel said in a Washington Post story about the die-off that appeared earlier this year. "Finding over 27 dead turtles in a two-to-three-year period was bizarre." In addition to killing the Maryland box turtles, ranavirus is believed to have been the cause of death of nearly every tadpole and young salamander in the study area since spring of 2010. - Sunday Gazette-Mail.

These incidents in West Virginia constitutes the 429 mass death events in 68 different countries since the beginning of 2012.

MASS ANIMAL DIE-OFF: Highly Unusual Mortality Event - Minnesota's Moose Population in Sharp, Unexplained Decline?!

Researchers are linking northern Minnesota’s rapidly declining moose population with climate change, and preventing the iconic animal’s extinction may prove exceptionally difficult, Scientific American reported. Recent aerial surveys in the state’s northeastern corner found 4,230 animals, or less than half the number counted in 2006.

Researchers are linking northern Minnesota’s rapidly declining moose population with climate change,
and preventing the iconic animal’s extinction may prove exceptionally difficult.

“It’s very hard to identify in the field exactly what an animal is dying from,” retired researcher Mark Lenarz told Scientific American. “We know something about the symptoms, but we don’t necessarily know the exact causes of mortality.” Scientists said hotter summers, warmer winters and “favorable conditions” for ticks, parasites and invasive species are contributing to the drop. Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources started tracking 150 healthy adult moose in 2002, and watched 119 of the animals die from unknown causes. This isn’t the first example scientists have documented, either. Moose populations declined to less than 100 animals from 4,000 in the state’s northwest over a 20-year period beginning in the 1980s, Scientific American said. Native Americans in the area are especially troubled by the research, Northland News reported.

“If this population continues to decline to a period where there is not a certain number of animals where we can take some, that’s a significant issue to the band members because they will lose that potential food source,” said Sonny Myers, executive director of the 1854 Treaty Authority, told Northwest News. The state will issue 87 tags this year for the annual moose hunt despite the decline, according to the Pioneer Press. Hunters are only allowed to kill male moose, and wildlife officials suggest removing less than 100 won’t affect the overall health of the population. The number of tags issued this year is about 15 percent less than 2011. “Even though hunting is not causing the decline, it makes sense to reduce hunting pressure in an orderly manner if the population continues to decline,” researcher Rolf Peterson told the Pioneer Press. - Global Post.