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200 cows were found dead in a Wisconsin field Friday.

The die-off in Stockton, Wis. comes after similar mass kills around the world — beginning with the 5,000 blackbirds that dropped dead in Beebe, Ark. — ignited conspiracy theories earlier this month.

UPI reports that the farmer who owned the cattle believes the cows died of a virus. He told deputies he had been working with a veterinarian and guessed that the animals died of infectious bovine rhinotracheitis or bovine virus diarrhea.

The Portage County sheriff’s department said there is no threat to humans or other animals.

The recent string of mass animal deaths that the Washington Post and some bloggers have taken to calling “the aflockalypse” can now be monitored on Google Maps.

The regularly updated resource pinpoints mass animal kills all over the world with blue arrows, tracking the die-offs from Dec. 2010 to the present.

All the fuss began last week when 5,000 red-winged blackbirds mysteriously dropped dead in the small town of Beebe, Ark. When more birds rained down on a Louisiana stretch of highway and thousands of drum fish washed up along the Arkansas River, people began to connect the dots.

Since then, as Google’s tool confirms, a slew of significant die-offs have cropped up all over the world–from crabs to penguins to manatees.

While many express religious or environmental concerns over the cause of the kills, the scientific community remains firm in saying these events are unrelated and not all that uncommon.

Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson says these incidents normally pass under the radar, and that advances in technology are to blame for a perceived connection.

“This instant and global communication, it’s just a human instinct to read mystery and portents of dangers and wondrous things in events that are unusual,” Wilson told The Associated Press on Thursday. “Not to worry, these are not portents that the world is about to come to an end.”

Activists with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society led an attack on Japanese whalers on a mission in Antarctica, whaling authorities said Wednesday.

The Institute of Cetacean Research, which organizes the whaling program, says militant activists aboard the international organization’s “Gojira” speedboat threw glass bottles at the Yushin Maru-2 harpoon ship and threw ropes at its propeller, in the second clash between the two groups this week.

Two of the Sea Shepherd’s ships engaged in a similar confrontation against the Japanese whaling ship Yushin Maru-3 on New Year’s Day, AFP reports.

The Institute of Cetacean Research denounced the attacks, insisting on the legality of the whaling mission.

A loophole in the country’s 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling allows Japan to kill hundreds of whales each year for “lethal research,” AFP reports.

Environmental organizations and anti-whaling nations like Australia and New Zealand condemn the practice as cruel and unnecessary.

A team of wildlife experts in Daytona Beach, Fla. has freed an endangered North Atlantic right whale from 150 feet of fishing rope that had been wrapped around its head and body.

The group consisting of state, federal and conservation officials tracked down the whale off the coast of Volusia County on Dec. 30, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

The disentanglement team removed most of the ropes and cut several pieces still remaining on the whale’s body.

“We were very concerned about this whale as the entangling ropes appeared to be life threatening,” said Jamison Smith of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to the Sentinel.

“However, given the efforts of the disentanglement team, we are optimistic the whale may shed the remaining ropes on its own, so we will continue to monitor its condition via aerial surveys and intervene again if necessary,” Smith added.

With a population of only 300 to 400 worldwide, right whales are thought to be the most endangered large whale. The animals feed off the coast of New England and Canada in the summers, and migrate southeast to the waters off Florida and Georgia for breeding season in mid-November to mid-April.

“(Right whales) are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972,” NOAA said, according to MSNBC. “Vessel strikes and entanglement in fixed fishing gear are the two greatest threats to their recovery.”

An aerial survey team first spotted this particular whale, a 30-foot long male thought to be less than 2 years old, on Christmas Day off northeast Florida.

The state wildlife officials then attached a satellite tracking buoy to the trailing ropes before a larger team was assembled to untangle the ropes.

Scientists typically find one or two entangled right whales in the region each year, MSNBC reports.

A task force is urging the federal fisheries service to allow more sea lions near Bonneville Dam to be killed or trapped.

The group of fishermen, tribes, state agencies and others issued a report to the National Marine Fisheries Service last week stating that the sea lion policies currently in place haven’t been effective at bolstering endangered fish populations.

The sea lions prey on salmon and steelhead that gather at the base of the Bonneville Dam near Portland, Ore.

A 2008 federal ruling stated that Oregon, Washington, and Idaho could kill up to 85 sea lions a year until 2012. The states have euthanized 27 sea lions to date and relocated 10 more to zoos and aquariums.

But the Humane Society of the United States called the program into question this year, and in November a federal appeals court ruled that state wildlife officials should not be allowed to kill sea lions when humans are responsible for comparable or larger catches of salmon and steelhead.

The agency has until early January to decide whether to appeal the decision, AP reported Tuesday.

In its three-year review of the original policy, the panel said that more animals need to be trapped and shot from land or boats in order for the program to be effective.

Manatees, the herbivorous marine animals sometimes referred to as “sea cows,” are migrating out of cold Gulf of Mexico waters into more temperate Florida power plant discharge canals, AP reported Tuesday. 300 of the majestic creatures congregated in the waters near Tampa Electric’s Big Bend Power Station on Tuesday, basking in the warmth of the plant’s outflow.

Cold weather poses a serious threat to manatees; chilly conditions can weaken their immune systems and eventually kill them.

“They’re not blubbery mammals. They’re very lean mammals,” Wendy Anastasiou, an environmental specialist at the power plant’s manatee viewing center, told AP. “They need the warmth. They need a warm place to go.”

This year has been especially brutal, with 246 manatees dying of “cold stress” between Jan. 1 and Dec. 17–up from 55 in 2009 and just 22 in 2008.

Wendy Quigley, a spokeswoman with the state-operated Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg, says this year’s spike in cold-related manatee deaths is troubling.

“Obviously we’re very concerned as an agency about the unusually high number of manatee deaths this year,” Quigley told AP.

She added that the figures don’t even include the region’s most recent cold snap, which sent temperatures tumbling into the 30s in South Florida this week. Worse, scientists only counted deaths that were confirmed to be cold-related, but 699 manatees were found dead this year in total, and it’s likely that many of them died from cold stress.

Illegal poaching, frequent collisions with motorboats, and low reproductive rates previously drove the species to endangerment, but in April 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that Florida’s manatee population had rebounded. The species now is now classified with a conservation status of “vulnerable” rather than “endangered.”

A decades-long effort to restore bighorn sheep to their historic habitat gained ground in the days before Christmas when dozens of sheep were transported to a Texas state park.

Conservation supporters cheered as the 46 animals bounded up the slopes of their new home in Bofecillos Mountains along the Rio Grande.

Federal wildlife officials captured 12 rams and 34 ewes in a remote area in West Texas and released them in their original range in Big Bend Ranch State Park, AP reports.

The population of mountain bighorns in Texas was all but obliterated by hunting practices, fencing, and disease from other animals by the 1960s. But conservation efforts brought the number of Texas sheep up to 1,115 this fall, up from 822 in 2006 and 352 in 2002, Texas Parks and Wildlife Service said.

The population of sheep was growing crowded in Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area, a small town about 25 miles south of Alpine. Officials captured the animals with net-guns fired by helicopter.

After biologists took blood-samples and administered tracking devices, the blindfolded ewes and rams were placed in livestock trailers and crates and driven 80 miles to their new terrain.

The capture-and-release lasted two days and cost about $40,000, AP reports.

Bonnie McKinney, director of the Bighorn Sheep Society, says the bighorn are a crucial part of the region’s ecosystem.

“When you bring them back, you’re putting it back in balance,” she said. “It was man that messed it up but we can fix it.”

New U.S. Navy testing off the Washington, Oregon, and California coasts will pose a danger for orca whales, environmentalists say.

The Obama administration recently approved a plan to expand sailor training, weapons testing, and underwater training minefield for submarines in the 122,400 nautical square miles off the West Coast.

The Navy has been training in that range since  World War II, but environmentalists worry that new missile and sonar testing along with the dumping of depleted uranium could harm the population of 150 orcas known to live along the Pacific coast.

Howard Garrett, the president of the Washington-based nonprofit Orca Network, claims the hazardous materials could pose a serious risk for vulnerable orcas.

“They’re all very susceptible,” Garrett told AP. “The Navy is single-minded and they’re focused, and the whales are very much a secondary concern to them.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council also expressed concern over the new program, saying it “would pose a significant risk to whales, fish and other wildlife,” by releasing “thousands of rounds of spent ammunition and unexploded ordnance containing chromium, chromium compounds, depleted uranium,” and other hazardous materials, AP reported Saturday.

The Navy’s mid-frequency sonar testing could damage the orca navigation and communication skills and could even cause brain damage and affect reproductive rates, the NRDC said.

But Navy officials maintain that the expanded practices will have no effect on marine life.

“We are not even permitted to kill even one marine mammal. … What people don’t seem to understand is we share the environment with everybody,” Navy spokeswoman Sheila Murray said, according to AP. “It’s our environment, too. Of course we want to take care of it. The Navy goes to great lengths to protect the marine environment.”

Garrett remains skeptical. “I’m not convinced by the assurances that the Navy gives that there will be no effect,” Garrett said. “I can’t imagine there won’t be mortalities.”

Yellowstone National Park’s American bison are truly a sight to behold. The only population of free-ranging buffalo in the lower 48, they number over 4,000 strong and remain a powerful tourist draw. Bison were famously pushed to near-extinction in the 19th century, and only recently sprang back to healthy numbers.

But the rapidly increasing size of Yellowstone’s bison population has some worried about the long-term stability of the park’s grasslands. Syracuse University biologist Douglas Frank, who has examined the effects of climate change and herbivores on Yellowstone’s grasses for two decades, plans to embark on an extensive study to assess the bison’s impact.

“During the late 1980s, similar concerns were raised about the size of the park’s elk herd and whether the herd was negatively impacting grasslands,” says Frank, according to Syracuse University’s website. “Rather than having a negative impact on the grasslands, we found that increases in elk grazing actually stimulated plant growth.”

Frank, a professor in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Scientists, plans to spend three years on the project. He will work with the National Park Service to monitor the herds’ grazing habits, using research methods he developed in his 20 years studying the park’s grasslands.

“Fossil records indicate that prior to the industrial revolution, the Earth’s grasslands and large herds of migratory herbivores coexisted for millennia,” Frank says. “These systems were stable, despite having sustained very intense levels of grazing. My work in Yellowstone explores why and how this happens.”

In Frank’s previous work on elk grazing habits, he found that several factors contributed to plant growth. For one, elk feces and urine in grazing areas provided ample fertilizer for plants. The intensive feeding also stimulated plants to grow new shoots and leaves, enhancing the overall health of the grasslands.

“Heavy grazing also increases the amount of nitrogen in the leaf material, which increases the quality of material that falls to the ground,” Frank says. “The high-quality litter is quickly broken down by soil bacteria, which in turn enriches the soil around grazed plants.”

Regardless of the outcome, the study will provide scientists with further insights into Yellowstone’s ecosystem.

“We also intend to use this opportunity to better understand the complex and fascinating ways in which the interactions among plants, herbivores, and soil organisms foster the stability of grassland systems,” Frank says.

LONDON, Oct. 12 (UPI) — British wildlife conservationists say they’ve identified a new carnivorous mammal species in Madagascar in the wetlands of the country’s largest lake.

A team from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust has named the mongoose-like creature Durrel’s vonstira after Gerald Durrell, the trust’s founder, the BBC reported.

With its marshy home under threat from invasive species and pollution, team members say the animal may be one of the world’s most threatened mammals.

After a first sighting in 2004, one of the creatures was captured in 2005 for detailed measurements and blood and tissue samples, which were sent to the Natural History Museum in London along with one dead specimen.

Museum zoologists compared it to its closest relative, the forest-dwelling brown-tailed vontsira, and confirmed it was a new, separate species.

“It was indeed a distinct new species and the specimen we have in the museum is now recognized as the holotype (the specimen from which the species takes its name) so it is available to scientists for research in the future,” the museum’s Paula Jenkins said.

A discovery of a new mammal species is not common and finding a new carnivore species is “particularly unusual,” she said.

“Durrell’s vontsira is incredibly rare,” she said.

“We know of only two animals in the wild. It has only been found in the wetlands of [Lake] Alaotra in Madagascar, so it lives in a very small area and is consequently vulnerable to the pressures on this threatened habitat.”

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