Fished in the 550’s yesterday, and found some nice weedlines and caught a few fish, but also noticed 5 dead birds floating in the weeds and several “sick” ones swimming only feet from the boat. Has anybody else noticed this? Hope its not a disease, or someone shooting them for sport as they feed them scraps of ballyhoo(not unlike shooting pen raised mallards in a flooded cornfield).
We saw a dead bird out there Saturday also.
definitely more dead birds recently.
both of my roommates got back from fishing today and said they saw a ton of dead fish today also.
We saw several dead ones at the 226 hole along the weed lines.
Go big or Go home!
fished deli area sat 6/24 saw dead birds at every decent weed patch!!
avin bird flu here???
reeltruth
33’ worldcat
We saw tons of them. Every one that we saw had a cigarette in it’s mouth. I’m starting to think it’s avian lung cancer.
we probably saw 7 or 8 dead ones and a couple more that didnt look to good yesterday from 500 to 750 feet
It is avian flu from South Africa…we’re all gonna die…
This is not a chawade…
We need total concentwation…
I just got back from Fort Pierce Fla and severel of the charter captains were complaining of dead birds also. Sounds like a serious issue.
FYI: If these birds are shearwaters this could be the cause…
Shearwaters are well-known wanderers of the sea. About 10 species can usually be seen along the SE coast, diving into the water or skimming across its surface. They can be recognised by tube-like nostrils at the base of their beaks. In most species, the top of the wings, back and head are dark brown in colour. The lighter colour of the underbody varies between species.
The hazards of migration
Shearwaters travel far and wide to places such as Antarctica, Siberia, Japan, South America and New Zealand. This often puts their lives in danger. After gales or during food shortages, dead birds are often found along the coast. In some years, enormous numbers of short-tailed shearwaters can be found dying or dead on the beaches along the coast.
The reasons for these deaths are not entirely clear, but scientists think that starvation and exhaustion on the birds’ southerly migrations are the main causes. Adults migrate south to their breeding islands during October, and although they stock up on their food supply in the northern hemisphere, they do not find a lot to eat on their way south. Forced to fly into strong winds, the weaker birds are unable to reach their breeding grounds. They end up as casualties along our coast. This is natural selection at work. It makes sure that only the strongest birds survive to breed.
“You’re A Smelly Pirate Hooker”
Pioneer 197 Sportfish
Yamaha F150
quote:sure is hot for october
Originally posted by Pete7502October
The shearwaters in the Atlantic breed in the Falklands. The adults usually migrate back north in April and the young follow in May. That would put the young around this area this time of year. The trip is 14k KM.
These freaks can dive to 68 meters.
Here’s a pic
Trojan F30
Twin Chevys
Kenner V90
90HP Johnson
Maybe they are taking the plundge because there are no Tunas pushing bait to the surface this year.
15’ Duracraft 25 yamaha
aka: The Meat Wagon!
MountPtoSea - your photo is a Sooty Shearwater - different bird than the dead ones offshore here. We also have Cory’s Shearwaters (big brown jobs with yellow beaks) and Audubon’s Shearwaters (the litle black-and-white ones that are weedline hounds).
The dead birds are Greater Shearwaters and they have also been washing up on beaches in Florida for the past 7-10 days. A few hundred birds in all have been found on FL beaches and offshore fishermen are reporting dead birds too.
They are not dying from human causes, disease or other abnormal events.
Greater Shearwaters are cold-water birds that migrate from the southern oceans up to the N. Atlantic this time of year. Hundreds of thousands of birds make the trip every year. And every year, old, sick or inexperienced individuals kick the bucket when they try to cross our warm waters, which are basically a desert to these guys.
In some years, prevailing winds and other factors (like scarce Tuna, as Flounder Pounder mentioned) make food harder to get for them and more birds die in transit. A lot of the time, most of the birds travel up the east side of the Gulf Stream but those prolonged easterlies 10-12 days ago blew scads of seabirds well west of the Stream and up into shallow inshore waters.
The same thing happened 2 years ago in FL, GA, SC and VA and we also saw numbers of dead Greater Shearwaters around Edisto Banks and the 226 Hole back in 1985.
A lot of marine scientists (who should know better) conveniently forget that these big beachings and die-offs happen every 20 years or so. So they run around like Chicken Little and do lots of testing for toxins, harmful phytoplankton and other pet projects. Helps justify their budgets / continued employment…
Here are some Florida newspaper accounts:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/volusia/orl-dieoff2007jun20,0,2648105.story
http://www1.tcpalm.com/tcp/local_news/article/0,2545,TCP_16736_5593367,00.html
Here’s a fishing / bird report about yesterday from Bob Wallace down in
Here’s a photo of a hungry Greater Shearwater chasing a Ballyhoo off Hatteras:
Good info Native. I guess that helps explain why they are more agressive with our trolled ballyhoo.
Had two of them by the boat when we were bottom fishing in 70’ of water the other day. No fear… They dove after our baits as they were dropped and were eating them. They made me very unhappy and we moved. I did not kill them, though I admit, I thought about it…
they got a 1/2 lb of squid and some short blackfish to tie them over…
This is not a chawade…
We need total concentwation…
Thanks for the info Native.
I’m by no means a bird person. Happened to see a special on shearwaters a while back. Their diving impressed me.
Trojan F30
Twin Chevys
Kenner V90
90HP Johnson