An investigation is underway in Mackay, Australia, over the mysterious deaths of hundreds of seabirds.
According to ABC News, The Department of Environment and Science advised that officers removed over 240 dead black noddies from the marina. Chemical films were found on the birds’ feathers, so officials believe a chemical may be responsible for the deaths; samples are currently being collected to determine the pollutant.
Department official Michael Short describes the chemical film as light and greasy, and it weakened the feathers’ ability to thermoregulate and keep the birds warm.
Short stated the following:
“The birds have a normal body temperature between 39 and 41 degrees Celsius, so with current sea temperatures around Mackay, probably around 25C.”
“The birds get really cold and they can actually die from hypothermia.”
“They certainly stop feeding and drinking.”
The investigation to determine the pollutant extends offshore 90 km to Bushy Island, where an additional 140 birds were found dead.
“The process is to certainly look at why the animals are getting sick, what are some of the causal factors there, so we can actually meet whatever the health needs are for the animals.”
“That’s in terms of is there some issue happening internally that we need to get some special treatment to, to try and better understand where we can care for these animals to try and rehabilitate them.”
Until Next Time…
(Sources)
Photo Credit: ABC News
Adair, M. (2021, September 3). Chemical pollution suspected as seabirds drop dead in the water in Mackay. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-03/dead-black-noddy-seabirds-mackay-marina/100431874.
HONEST MEDIA 
Perhaps due to (everyone’s sole spaceship) Earth’s large size, there seems to be a general obliviousness in regards to our natural environment. It’s as though throwing non-biodegradable garbage down a dark chute, or pollutants emitted out of exhaust and drainage pipes, or spewed from sky-high jet engines and very tall smoke stacks — or even the largest contamination events — can somehow be safely absorbed into the air, sea, and land (i.e. out of sight, out of mind); like we’re safely inconsequentially dispensing of that waste into a compressed-into-nothing black-hole singularity.
No wonder so much gratuitous yet sea-life-damaging waste eventually finds its way into our life-filled oceans, where there are few, if any, caring souls to see it.
Though we all need to keep doing our very best to correct it ASAP, humankind, in short, is distracting itself/ourselves from our own burning and heavily polluting of our sole spaceship, Earth. If it were not for environmentally conscious and active young people who are just reaching voting age, matters would be even bleaker than they are.
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