January 18, 2011 -
“It's very strange that so many should be killed, and in such a confined area.
There is nothing in the scientific literature for this kind of
mass mortality among octopus.”
- Nuno Oliveira, Dir., Gaia Biological Park, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal
Since January 2, 2011, thousands of dead octopus
have washed up on a 5-mile-stretch of northern Portugal
beach in a place called Vila Nova de Gaia. That same week between
December 29 and January 4, thousands of birds, millions of fish and crab
were found dead from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere.
The unprecedented large die-off of the Portugal octopus provoked authorities
to speculate it is a disease and the public has been warned not to eat
the dead creatures. Tissue samples were sent to Lisbon's veterinary
lab for testing.
An estimated 1,100 pounds of octopus all ages and sizes washed up dead Saturday and another 110 pounds Sunday, said Mike Weber, head of the Aguda coastal station in Gaia.
“That suggests that it wiped out the entire local population,” Weber told Time magazine in a story published Wednesday.
Firefighters gathered up the dead animals, with many sent for testing at a laboratory in Lisbon. Biologists have ruled out pollution as the cause of death because no other species were affected. The cause is likely some form of disease-causing parasite or bacteria, Oliveira said.
Copyright 2010 by United Press International
Image © 2011 by BBC. More information Ecoworld.
Anti-Aging: Turn the Clock Back!
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I posted the following thoughts as a comment on a blog last week that was about the mysterious bird deaths that have been occurring since the start of this year. I have been following this story as a matter of personal interest, ever since I heard about the mysterious bird deaths in Sweden. There has been a a few fictional story lines in the media portraying events like this and they do prompt food for thought. Only recently this week, there were more bird deaths in Romania. What I find strange is the explanations given for why a flock of birds or so many fish of one type have died so mysteriously. My own opinion is that these animals all have something in common and something in the environment changed to cause them to all perish in these groups, all at once. One thing I think that should be looked into is the genetic traits of each of these groups of animals. They may have been genetically susceptible to something that made them all die at once. I'm putting my Microbiology cap on here... Perhaps a level of radiation or magnetism (some force capable of influencing us on a molecular scale) peaked at a particular level that just happened to be right, for affecting certain genes, resulting in the "switching off" of specific families/relations of these animals- like a very sudden acceleration of the biochemical aging process all life has to undergo. Hence only a few of these fish or birds have been affected by an environmental factor which is is most likely global. One would need to make further observations to learn more...
ReplyDeleteNow, since only last week, I have read the BBC news report of the mass octopus deaths, which led me to finding this report. I believe that the authorities around the world need to coordinate their investigations and research when looking into these incidents which appear to be a global phenomena.
Thanks,
Duncan Falconer
If you look at the bbc article and the copyright date at the bottom if your post, you'll see that it actually happened January of last year, 2010.
ReplyDelete