tasmanian short tailed shearwaters found dead in nz

[wayno]

Nearly 200 seabirds have been found dead along Waikato's west coast beaches.
A total of 184 short-tailed shearwater, a migratory bird that typically breeds on the islands between Tasmania and Victoria, have been washed ashore between Waikorea beach and Taharoa, south of Kawhia.
It is not known when the birds died and were washed ashore, but numbers are said to be "unusually large" by one expert.
Hugh Clifford, who organised the beach patrol on behalf of the Waikato branch of the Ornithological Society, said the number of short-tailed shearwater found this year was much higher than normal.
"There would be millions of them passing down through the Tasman Sea on the southern migration.
"Some of them were pushed closer to New Zealand and the food conditions may have been unfavourable, causing them to perish."
Each year during the southern hemisphere winter, the short-tailed shearwater migrate about 15,000 km to the Northern Pacific, before making their way back towards southern Australia to breed around October.
Mr Clifford said when a large number of birds are found dead along the coast, it is called a "wreck".
The beach patrols, which took place at Waikorea, Taharoa, Ruapuke and Kawhia, found an average of seven birds for each kilometre walked.
The number of short-tailed shearwater found this year is the highest in more than a decade and dwarfs tallies recorded in previous years.
In 2012, the Waikato beach patrols found only eight short-tailed shearwater among 344 dead seabirds.
Dr Graeme Taylor, a principal science advisor at the Department of Conservation, said a wreck was usually the result of strong onshore winds and poor feeding conditions.
"Onshore winds will drive the birds towards the coast and as a result the weakened birds will fight to try to get back towards the ocean, but lose the battle."
The exhausted birds plunged into the sea and were then washed ashore dead.
Dr Taylor said poor feeding conditions in the North Pacific could also play a part.
"They don't eat anything in migration. They basically fatten up in the North Pacific before they come south."
In 2011, 29,934 seabirds were found strewn along Waikato's coast - part of the largest wreck in more than a decade.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/ne ... found-dead

[climberman]

Leave our shearwaters alone!

I think at this time of year on the Oz E coast 7/km after a storm would be called.... normal.

[wayno]

i dont think i've ever seen one alive or dead at this end of the country..
i've seen something like this bird down south around stewart island though. they call them mutton birds there..

[climberman]

Yeah, we offen call em mutton birds too.

[Onestepmore]

Wayno, on my walk south of Sydney last week several beaches had hundreds of dead mutton birds. I included a link to an article about in my track report.

[wayno]

the fly alongside the stewart island fast ferry, amazing watching them skim over the swells...

[Eremophila]

Took my dogs to a newly-discovered (for me) local beach a week or two ago. A couple of hundred dead muttonbirds, at least, within perhaps 1km. I googled and discovered something similar had occurred in November 2009.
Phoned the relevant department, being new to Victoria and departments constantly changing names this was quite a task. The guy who answered said they had been receiving similar reports from all across the Victorian coast.

[wayno]

lack of fish? a whale expert in nz said toothed whales are being washed up with their teeth ground down and empty stomachd, indicating they are eating somethign that isnt normal for their diet because their primary food is too hard to come by now.

[Clusterpod]

We've been travelling across the south of Australia for the last few weeks, and beaches from Esperance, WA, (Especially Cape Le Grand and Cape Arid NP beaches) to Lincoln National Park, SA, (Coffin Bay NP beaches had many) that are exposed to the southern ocean nearly all have dead shearwaters.

It has been suggested that it was trauma from unseasonal storms to the south that caught a part of the shearwater migration.

WA Dept. of Parks and Wildlife should be releasing their findings after examining remains presently.

[Hallu]

Found dozens of them dead along Mornington Pensinla this week-end. It's clearly a massive phenomenon, but apparently normal.