Wash. Weather May Be Killing Seabirds

The mass starvation deaths of murres on Tatoosh Island off the Olympic Peninsula may be due in part to unusual weather patterns along the West Coast, scientists say.

..At the same time, researchers recorded low catches of juvenile salmon and rockfish, and there were sightings of emaciated gray whales. Those findings were preceded by the first appearance in Washington waters of thousands of squid normally not found north of San Francisco. And a plankton typically found near San Diego bloomed along Northwest beaches.

Scientists say to expect more of the same as the planet warms and weather patterns are altered.

..”There are all these unconnected reports of biological failures,” said John McGowan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. “It’s all the way up and down the coast. … There’s a lot of evidence there are important changes going on in the Pacific coast system.”

Along the Washington and Oregon coasts, researchers believe it was the lack of winds that led to birds’ deaths.

In the spring, the Aleutian Low, a weather system that brings winter storms to the area, begins moving north. Winds push the surface of the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, allowing deeper, colder ocean water to surge in, bringing with it nutrients from dead plankton, dead fish and fish excrement.

“Basically, you can think of it as a lot of schmutz that settles to the bottom,” Parrish said.

Without that perennial fertilization, there’s no plankton, therefore breaking the food cycle for many fish and birds.

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