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Ducks in various locations around Canada have had to be euthanized recently after landing in polluted oil tailing ponds, Canadian authorities reported.

Officials stated that roughly 230 birds landed in a Syncrude tailing pond in Alberta on Monday, and came in contact with toxic extraction byproducts which necessitated euthanizing them.

Similar incidents occurred on Tuesday in facilities owned by Shell and Suncor.

A “small number of oiled birds” were euthanized on the advice of Alberta fish and wildlife authorities, Suncor officials announced, while Shell reported finding two dead birds and two other oiled birds in its tailing pond.

“We are cooperating fully with regulators and are working to minimize waterfowl losses,” Scott Sullivan, Syncrude president and CEO, said in a statement. “This is very unfortunate, especially given the significant efforts we have taken to improve our deterrent system.”

The deaths of the ducks at Syncrude’s pond came just days after Syncrude agreed to pay a $3 million penalty for the deaths of 1,600 ducks in another tailings pond in April 2008, CBC News reported.

A spokesman for Greenpeace said the industry should stop using tailings ponds.

“The fact is that these toxic tailings lakes pose an ongoing threat, not just to bird populations but to animals and to downstream communities as well,” Greenpeace Alberta campaigner Mike Hudema said.

Source: UPI

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 12 (UPI) — Ancient flying dinosaurs may have been able to fly for 10,000 miles non-stop on wings stretching up to 30 feet, a U.S. scientist says.

The fliers belonged to four species some researchers call supergiant pterosaurs, flying reptiles such as Quetzalcoatlus northropi from Texas, ScienceNews.org reported.

First appearing 70 million years ago, they were about as tall as a modern giraffe and flew on membrane wings.

These supergiants were “big by pterosaur standards,” biomechanist Michael Habib of Chatham University in Pittsburgh said. “They are truly gruesomely huge by bird and bat standards.”

If scientists are correctly estimating their body masses and wing dimensions based on fossils, and if they could catch thermals and glide as birds do, “it would make them the longest single-trip-distance fliers in the Earth’s history,” Habib said.

Other researchers such as David Unwin, a pterosaur researcher at the University of Leicester in England, aren’t so sure but he said “we didn’t fall on the floor laughing” upon hearing of the idea.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Oct. 6 (UPI) — The place of the extinct passenger pigeon in the family tree of pigeons and doves has been determined using century-old DNA samples, researchers say.

With a bit of DNA from stuffed museum specimens, scientists at the University of Illinois have determined the passenger pigeon was most closely related to other North and South American pigeons and not to the morning dove, as was long believed, a university release said.

One of North America’s most spectacular birds was also one of the first to be driven to extinction, researchers said.

In the early 1800s it was the most abundant bird species on the planet, living in the eastern and central forests of the United States and parts of eastern Canada. Flocks of passenger pigeons were so vast they darkened the sky, and it could take days for a flock to pass overhead, researchers said.

“It must have been unbelievable to see one of these flocks,” Kevin Johnson, an ornithologist at the University of Illinois, said. “There is nothing in modern times that we can compare it to. The passenger pigeon was very nomadic and it formed these huge flocks, in the millions, and breeding colonies in the millions.”

Intensive hunting and habitat destruction led to the bird’s eventual extinction, Johnson said. The last surviving passenger pigeon, a bird name Martha, died in 1914 in the Cincinnati Zoo.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

SANTA CRUZ, Calif., Oct. 6 (UPI) — Researchers say a species of lizard in California deserts lives in family groups, showing patterns of social behavior more commonly seen in mammals and birds.

Scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, say their research into the formation and stability of family groups in desert night lizards (Xantusia vigilis) in the Mojave desert provides new insights into the evolution of cooperative behavior, a university release said.

Alison Davis, who led the study as a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz, said one of the unusual characteristics of desert night lizards is that they are viviparous, giving birth to live young instead of laying eggs.

But even more unusual, she said, was that both young and old lizards could be found huddling together every winter beneath fallen Joshua trees and other desert plant debris.

“This is remarkable, given the fact that in most species of lizards, individuals actively avoid each other,” Davis said.

The researchers found that young desert night lizards stay with their mother, father, and siblings for several years after birth, and some groups aggregated under the same fallen log year after year, forming what the researchers termed dynasties.

The fact the young are born live, rather than hatching from eggs, is crucial for the evolution of cooperative behaviors, Davis said.

It “provides the opportunity for prolonged interaction between the mother and offspring, which predisposes the animal to form a family group,” Davis said. “The importance of parent-offspring interaction fits with what is currently understood about evolution of family groups and cooperative behaviors in birds and mammals.”

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

LANSING, Mich., Oct. 2 (UPI) — At least 130 Michigan horses have been stricken with Eastern equine encephalitis this year, with most dying from the disease, state agricultural officials say.

The Department of Agriculture says the encephalitis outbreak has been the worst in three decades, the Kalamazoo Gazette reported. Only one case of West Nile virus has been reported in a horse this year.

The disease had been reported in 130 horses as of Sept. 30. Only five survived the disease.

Both viruses are spread from birds to horses, other animals and people by mosquitoes who drink blood from infected birds.

Dr. Steven Halstead, the state veterinarian, said vaccines can be effective in protecting horses from encephalitis. He also recommended using insect repellents, getting rid of standing water where mosquitoes breed and patches of brush where they hide and being especially sure to protect horses at dusk and dawn when they are most likely to bite.

With winter on the way, a hard frost will also quell mosquitoes in the state, he said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

BERLIN, Oct. 1 (UPI) — A giant bird living in a Berlin zoo may have settled a scientific debate over the existence of a huge, dark species of sea eagle, researchers say.

For more than 100 years scientists argued over whether there were two species of Steller’s sea eagle, one with distinctive white feathers and one dark variety, or if the dark eagles were just a rare color variation, the BBC reported.

But a dark, captive Steller’s sea eagle born to white-feathered parents, and the only living bird of its kind, may have put the debate to rest.

The Steller’s eagle is the heaviest of all eagles, and it usually has brown and white plumage, sporting white feathers along the wings, legs and tail.

A different, dark form of the bird was first described as a separate species in 1887, with brown feathers all over except for a white tail.

But there have been few authenticated sightings, the last in 1968, leading many to presume if there were a darker species it was extinct.

But a young eagle at the Tierpark Zoo in Berlin, when it molted into its adult plumage, proved to be a rare dark specimen.

“It’s really a surprise if you suddenly have a bird which was considered extinct and not observed for about half a century, neither in the wild nor in captivity,” Tierpark’s Curator of Birds Martin Kaiser said.

The eagle molted into its adult plumage this year with only a white tail, making it the only known living bird of its kind.

However, Kaiser said, the fact that both its parents are the white-feathered variety means the dark eagle is a color variation, not a separate species.

“This is the evidence that it is a color phase only. … [For the female to] be a subspecies the parents must be also dark colored,” he said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 (UPI) — Galapagos Islands frigatebirds are a genetically distinct species from their mainland counterparts, warranting new conservation status, U.S. scientists say.

The equatorial Pacific Ocean islands boast a number of unique plant and animal species from tortoises to iguanas to penguins, but frigatebirds can fly hundreds of miles across open ocean, suggesting their gene flow should be widespread and their genetic makeup should be identical to those of the frigatebirds on the mainland coast of the Americas, researchers from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute say.

But three different genetics tests all yielded the same result — the Galapagos seabirds have been genetically different from the frigatebirds elsewhere for more than half a million years.

“This was such a surprise,” Frank Hailer, a research associate at institute, said. “It’s a great testimony to just how unique the fauna and flora of the Galapagos are. Even something that is so well-adapted to flying over open oceans is isolated there.”

What is clear is that this small population of genetically unique frigatebirds is a vulnerable group.

Any catastrophic event or threats by humans could wipe out the approximately 2,000 frigatebirds that nest on the Galapagos Islands, researchers say.

“The magnificent frigatebirds on the Galapagos are a unique evolutionarily significant unit, and if the Galapagos population did go extinct, the area will not likely be recolonized rapidly by mainland birds,” Robert Fleischer, head of the institute’s Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics, said. “This emphasizes the importance of protecting this small population of birds there.”

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

LONDON, Sept. 27 (UPI) — A bird that took a wrong turn on its way from North America to Latin America and ended up in Britain has birdwatchers there excited, observers say.

A Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, native to Canada and the Northeast United States, has drawn hundreds of birdwatchers to the England’s Norfolk coast after apparently getting lost while migrating to Central or South America for the winter, The Daily Mail reported Monday.

The bird was first seen on Saturday and news of the sighting spread through the United Kingdom’s Rare Bird Alert network, the newspaper said.

“When I heard there was a Flycatcher on the east coast it was almost too much to believe and I had to see it for myself,” said David Norgate, 44, who made the hourlong walk from the nearest parking lot to the clump of sycamore trees where the bird has made its unexpected home.

Paul Noakes of Great Yarmouth, a birdwatcher for 45 years, managed to catch a glimpse of the wayward traveler.

“Sadly, it must have got lost and will never get back again. Very often birds that get lost like this don’t survive, particularly if the weather remains bad,” he said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

LONDON, Sept. 25 (UPI) — Birds that migrate over long distances are more vulnerable to climate change than those that make shorter journeys, European researchers say.

Scientists say the increasingly early arrival of spring at breeding sites in Europe makes it harder for birds arriving later from a long flight to attract a mate or find food, the BBC reported.

The researchers warn the “increasing ecological mismatch” can lead to a decline in bird populations.

Earlier this year, U.K researchers published a study that suggested spring was arriving in Britain 11 days earlier than 30 years ago.

“The birds that have not kept track with the changes have declined more in northern Europe,” said researcher Nicola Saino of the University of Milan.

“The most likely problem is that there is optimum time in spring for the birds to breed; and by arriving late, the birds are probably missing the best period in which to breed,” he said.

“Peaks in food abundance, such as insects, are very narrow in northern latitudes; so if you arrive too late and miss the peak, then you miss the best opportunity to raise your offspring, Saino said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

CHARLOTTETOWN, Prince Edward Island, Sept. 24 (UPI) — Canadian wildlife officials say they separated and released two bald eagles that had gotten their talons locked together in Prince Edward Island.

People arriving at a party near Charlottetown Saturday night discovered the entangled eagles on a front lawn, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News reported.

“They were in distress because they were flopping trying to get apart,” Leith Stretch, one of the people who discovered the birds, said.

Gerald MacDougall, manager of fish and wildlife for the province, was called and went to see what he could do.

“I had never seen anything like it, where the two actually had grabbed each other in this death grip and actually allowed people to walk right up to them,” MacDougall said.

He believes the eagles got into a fight over a scrap of food.

MacDougall put on a pair of welder’s gloves before approaching the birds.

“I had a horned owl that actually put its talons right through my left hand, in three places,” he said. “I know what it feels like, and I certainly don’t want that to happen again.”

MacDougall covered the heads of the eagles to calm them, but still needed help from two other men to hold the eagles and pry them apart.

The raptors were taken to opposite ends of a nearby field and released into the night sky.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.