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Nov 29, 2008 12:33PM
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Ow I love doing this. :-)By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY
Every year, endangered sea turtles wash up on the beaches of Massachusetts' Cape Cod Bay, freezing and near death. Most are nursed back to health.
This fall, though, an unusually early, long cold snap and lashing winds have caused more Kemp's Ridley sea turtles, the most endangered sea turtles in the world, to wash ashore dead, says Tony LaCasse, spokesman for the New England Aquarium in Boston, which rehabilitates sick turtles and returns them to the wild.
Since late October, the aquarium has received 36 turtles, 30 of them since Thursday, LaCasse says. Most are Kemp's Ridleys.
"We had probably 20 turtles that arrived dead," he says. In past years, 80% to 90% arrived alive.
The Kemp's Ridley is the smallest sea turtle. It grows up to 100 pounds. The ones that wash up on the beach are juveniles 2 to 5 years old weighing up to 8 pounds, LaCasse says.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Boston | Massachusetts | Atlantic | Kemp | New England Aquarium | Cape Cod Bay
It's not clear how they end up on Cape Cod. Juveniles should have migrated down the Atlantic coast by now, he says, but scientists speculate that currents pull them into the bay.
"As the water temperature cools down, they become less and less active," says Dennis Murley, a naturalist at the Mass Audubon Society's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary on Cape Cod. "Somewhere around 50 degrees, it just about kills them."
Volunteers walk beaches in November and December searching for stranded sea turtles.
For the past 10 days, Don Lewis has combed beaches day and night. On Friday, he found a Kemp's Ridley in the waves. The turtle, which fit in the palm of his hand, "felt like an ice cube when you picked it up," he says, but it blinked when he touched its eyelid.
On Sunday, he found a Loggerhead and another Kemp's Ridley. The Kemp's Ridley was flipped on its back and unresponsive.
He doesn't know their fate once they're turned over to the aquarium.
Lewis, 61, a government retiree, blogs at www.turtlejournal.com. He says he's relieved that rain Tuesday broke the cold snap.
"You pick up one of these small critters that looks like it's frozen, and you put it in your overcoat to protect it from the wind … and it starts moving and absorbing heat," he says. "That is an emotional moment."
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Shuttle's astronauts await permission to landCAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) — Their work in orbit accomplished, space shuttle Endeavour's astronauts got the green light Saturday to return to Earth, but were warned "pretty iffy" weather at the main landing site could send them across the country or keep them up an extra day.
On Saturday afternoon — 24 hours before the planned landing — Mission Control informed the seven astronauts that Endeavour had been cleared for re-entry following analysis of data beamed down from a final thermal survey of their ship. The space shuttle was found to be free of any serious defects caused by space junk that could jeopardize the descent.
The astronauts noticed a small strip of material floating away as they checked out their flight systems, but Mission Control told them not to worry. It was merely a 3-inch label.
Astronaut Gregory Chamitoff was especially eager to come back: He's been off the planet, away from his wife and 3-year-old twins, since the end of May.
"My watch is telling me that it will be 182 days for me today away from home," Chamitoff said Saturday. "A lot of people have to spend time away from home, but I've been lucky to have a really spectacular place to live for the last half year.
"I'm very proud that all of us here are leaving the space station a better, more spectacular place than it was when we arrived."
Endeavour and its crew left the international space station on Friday, ending a nearly two-week visit that set the stage for population growth next year. The astronauts furnished the orbiting outpost with a new bathroom, kitchen, exercise machine, sleeping quarters and recycling system designed to convert urine and sweat into drinking water.
NASA's goal is to double the size of the space station crew, to six, by June.
Endeavour originally was supposed to land Saturday, but mission managers kept the astronauts at the space station an extra day to help with the balky urine processor. The weather was beautiful Saturday at Kennedy Space Center, but a cold front was expected to bring stiff wind and possibly thunderstorms on Sunday and even worse conditions on Monday.
NASA called up its backup landing site in California, Edwards Air Force Base, just in case.
"I'm not going to commit to either one today," flight director Bryan Lunney said Saturday. "I'm not going to commit until probably as late as I can."
Endeavour has enough supplies to stay up until Tuesday.
One final task was accomplished late Saturday afternoon: the ejection of a miniature research satellite from Endeavour's payload bay. The satellite — dubbed Picosat and measuring 10 inches long and 5 inches high and wide — is meant to test new solar cell technology for the Defense Department.
Commander Christopher Ferguson said he was "extremely satisfied" with how the 16-day mission had gone. He and his crew were bringing back about 7 liters of recycled urine and condensation from the space station's new system for testing — "yesterday's coffee" as the astronauts like to call it.
"We came up here with a very long list of objectives, and although we encountered a glitch or two along the way, we've managed to achieve them all," Ferguson said in a series of TV interviews.
The astronauts had to spend extra time on the urine processor getting it to work. And one of the spacewalkers — Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper — lost a $100,000 tool kit. The bag full of grease guns and other tools was expected to keep circling Earth until spring.
Asked by an interviewer if NASA would take the $100,000 out of her paycheck, she replied: "Well, if they do, I guess I'll be working for NASA for a long, long, long time."
Perhaps the most interesting observation about the space station came from Stephen Bowen, a former Navy submarine officer making his first shuttle flight.
"As soon as I got on the space station, I noticed the distinct pseudo-submarine odor, not quite as intense," Bowen said with a chuckle. "But it was very familiar, and those that know it will remember it well."
Can you do made up news or news from other worlds? Or should I make a topic for that. I think I will!:)
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Galveston-area hospitals still swamped by hurricaneBy Steve Sternberg, USA TODAY
GALVESTON, Texas — Hurricane Ike has turned the nation's top-ranked trauma center into a doc-in-the-box.
"If we can't put on a Band-Aid or a splint, we have to transfer you or send you home," says Brian Zachariah, director of emergency medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston. "We can't even give traditional emergency care."
GALVESTON: Economy hampers post-Ike recovery efforts
UTMB's John Sealy Hospital, which typically handled more than 60,000 emergencies and 3,000 trauma operations a year from communities along the Gulf Coast, now must transfer injured patients elsewhere.
Medevac helicopters or ambulances carry people with severe injuries to Houston, 50 miles to the northwest, a detour that can stretch the "golden hour," when quick treatment is most likely to save a life, to the breaking point.
Doctors and paramedics say they have no choice. Three years after Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans and shut down the city's famed Charity Hospital, Ike's storm surge flooded John Sealy and several other UTMB medical centers in Galveston, closing them for more than a month.
The storm, which made landfall on Sept. 13, flooded John Sealy's blood bank, pharmacy, laboratory and kitchens with several feet of water. Altogether, Ike cost the hospitals $710 million in damage, seven times the maximum insurance coverage available to the hospital, says Karen Sexton, UTMB health system's chief executive officer.
For weeks, construction crews have battled back, laboring to pump out ghostly hallways, eliminate mold and make repairs. But the storm's ravages weren't limited to the hospital building. Last Monday, acting on orders from university regents, officials finished a series of 2,500 layoffs throughout the UTMB system. Most came from John Sealy's 4,500 doctors and staff. Among them were 127 tenured professors at the medical school, officials say.
"It's a really hard time," Sexton says. "We have heroes on both sides, heroes who are staying and heroes who are going. I'm not sure any health care institution in the country has gone through anything like this."
The hospital may never be the same. It began reopening gradually last week and put a dozen or so beds into service. But tests revealed mold spores wafting into four of six operating rooms, postponing their use indefinitely.
Eventually, Sexton says, administrators plan to staff 250 of the hospital's 550 beds. The ER and trauma center are still closed, along with the lab, intensive care, pharmacy and other support services.
"We're one of three Level One trauma centers in the Houston-Galveston area," Sexton says. "We know the impact of being off-line. We hate it, but right now it's the safest thing to do for our patients."
Most major trauma patients now face a 50-mile helicopter ride to Ben Taub General Hospital or Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston. "If the weather's bad, we're stuck with land ambulances and all the delays that entails," Zachariah says. Ambulances are now parked outside the ER day and night to transfer routine patients and for those days when helicopters can't fly.
April Mears, who works the hospital's transfer phones, says she's used to moving patients in, not out. "We never transferred people out. We've had to learn."
Fewer than 200 of the nation's 5,000 hospitals make the grade to become Level One trauma centers, as certified by the American College of Surgeons (ACS). This year, less than a decade after John Sealy achieved that milestone, the ACS notified the hospital that it had the lowest trauma death rate in the country, says Bill Mileski, chief of trauma services. Mileski declined to release the number, saying it is a rough estimate and he doesn't want to embarrass other medical centers.
The hospital learned of its achievement six weeks after the storm shut the center down, Sexton says. "It made us even more determined to find our way back and become a Level One trauma center again."
Mileski says: "Everybody focuses on the first hour, which is very dramatic, but that's just 1% of trauma care. These are people who are going to be in intensive care units for weeks, sometimes on a ventilator for months. You have to have all that ready, in addition to having specialists available."
Most of the hospital's trauma patients are injured in industrial accidents and car wrecks, he says. Many lack medical insurance. Each year for the past several years, Zachariah says, UTMB has spent about $130 million a year in indigent emergency care. The Texas Legislature repays just $119 million of that, he says.
What can't be tallied is patients' suffering. "We had an offshore worker who was getting off his boat," Zachariah says. "A wave caught his foot between the boat and the gangplank. It broke all the bones in his foot. We had to send him to Houston. It's a pretty far piece."
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would you really want a baby lion to starve to death or get shot or hunted down and killed in the wild? in zoos they have plenty of food and since they are so territorial, it actuallt stops them from killing eachoher in the wild if they all live in a zoo where they have all the room they want and since they all live together, they dont have to worry about territories. so, think about that!
PETA Workers Charged With Animal CrueltyAHOSKIE, N.C. — Two employees of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (search) have been charged with animal cruelty after dumping dead dogs and cats in a shopping center garbage bin, police said.
Investigators staked out the bin after discovering that dead animals had been dumped there every Wednesday for the past four weeks, Ahoskie police said in a prepared statement Thursday.
PETA has scheduled a news conference for Friday in Norfolk, Va., where the group is based.
Police found 18 dead animals in the bin and 13 more in a van registered to PETA. The animals were from animal shelters in Northampton and Bertie counties, police said.
The two were picking up animals to be brought back to PETA headquarters for euthanization, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk (search) said Thursday. Neither police nor PETA offered any theory on why the animals might have been dumped.
Police charged Andrew Benjamin Cook, 24, of Virginia Beach, Va., and Adria Joy Hinkle, 27, of Norfolk, Va., each with 31 felony counts of animal cruelty and eight misdemeanor counts of illegal disposal of dead animals. They were released on bond and an initial court date was set for Friday.
Hinkle has been suspended, but Cook continues to work for PETA, Newkirk said.
Newkirk said she doubted Hinkle had ever been cruel to an animal and said if the animals were placed in the bin, "We will be appalled."
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What's brownish-purple, goes to the beach and stinks of rotting flesh?
New York's celebrity-obsessed Hamptons summer season got even sillier this week when a strange-looking, very dead creature washed up on a beach in Montauk at the far eastern end of New York's Long Island.
On Tuesday afternoon, a photo was posted on Gawker, the Big Apple's reigning gossip blog, which treated the Montauk monster with characteristic respect: "Good Luck With Your Hell Demons."
The animal looks like a bloated, hairless dog, except that it's got an eagle-like beak, a prominent brow ridge and a curiously elongated front paw.
From FOX news
New York's celebrity-obsessed Hamptons summer season got even sillier this week when a strange-looking, very dead creature washed up on a beach in Montauk at the far eastern end of New York's Long Island.
On Tuesday afternoon, a photo was posted on Gawker, the Big Apple's reigning gossip blog, which treated the Montauk monster with characteristic respect: "Good Luck With Your Hell Demons."
The animal looks like a bloated, hairless dog, except that it's got an eagle-like beak, a prominent brow ridge and a curiously elongated front paw.
From FOX news
The "Montauk Monster" may just be a bag of bones by now, but the people who know where it is aren't saying.
The riddle of the beaked beast found on a upscale East Hampton, N.Y., beach in mid-July got even trickier Thursday as various experts weighed in — and its "discoverers" revealed they might have something mysterious of their own planned.
First, "Animal Planet" wildlife expert Jeff Corwin appeared on FOX News Channel to proclaim that we're all suckers.
"What you think is a beak is actually the canine teeth," Corwin told Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly. "What we have is an incredibly rare" — dramatic pause — "raccoon."
From FOX news
The riddle of the beaked beast found on a upscale East Hampton, N.Y., beach in mid-July got even trickier Thursday as various experts weighed in — and its "discoverers" revealed they might have something mysterious of their own planned.
First, "Animal Planet" wildlife expert Jeff Corwin appeared on FOX News Channel to proclaim that we're all suckers.
"What you think is a beak is actually the canine teeth," Corwin told Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly. "What we have is an incredibly rare" — dramatic pause — "raccoon."
From FOX news
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I love posting news articles about weird creatures-exept bigfoot and yetis. I HATE them!
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fffffft. **coughcough
hoaxes
coughcoughcough** excuse me,I have a bad cold.
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aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Pink Flamingo Die Offs.The region supports a population of about one million of the stately, stilt-legged creatures, the smallest of six flamingo species, along with 400 types of migratory birds. The splendid wildlife display draws international visitors to what ornithologists call "the most fabulous bird spectacle in the world."
But there's trouble in flamingo paradise. For nearly a decade, the birds have periodically perished in large numbers, leaving the shores of the lakes littered with mountains of pink bird carcasses...
To read the rest about the pink flamingos click here.
Did you guys here that they are going to let people hunt wolves up in the Idaho aria?
It was on the news a few weeks ago. The hunters are complaining that there aren't enough elk. So they are killing the wolves. They say that the wolves are killing all of "there" elk.
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