the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread
- Thread starter wader
- Start date
This is the kind of headline that keeps me up at night...
Dead seal pups are spread out on a beach after adults abandon the breeding area. Maxi Jonas photo
It felt like watching one of those blockbusters about the end of the world. Like witnessing an apocalypse, but in real life. Which, in a way, it was.
The beaches of Valdes Peninsula in Argentina, normally so packed with elephant seals that time of year it is impossible to stroll along the shore, were desolate except for hundreds of dark, rotting carcasses – nearly a whole season of seal pups dead, with gulls pecking at the remains.
Instead of the usual cacophony of guttural honks that drowns out the waves during breeding season, the eerie silence was only broken by the sound of a few remaining elephant seals shaking their heads, snot running down their protruding, namesake noses.
“You felt like a bomb had exploded,” said Martín Méndez, recalling the scene he witnessed in October during an annual survey of southern elephant seals in that stretch of coastal Patagonia.
“It is catastrophic,” added the marine biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, a New York-based nonprofit group. “This is the largest die-off for the species, period.”
Altogether, an estimated 17,000 elephant seal pups seals died there last year from avian influenza, victims of an unprecedented panzootic – a pandemic among animals – that has struck around 320 types of birds and mammals.
Over the past few years, a potent strain of H5N1 avian influenza has jumped between species and raged through domestic and wild animal populations on every continent except Australia and Antarctica, crisscrossing the world along birds’ migratory routes.
So far, cases of humans getting seriously sick from this strain of flu are rare. But the possibility of the quickly evolving influenza virus gaining the ability to be transmitted between from one mammal to another – and eventually, to humans– has scientists concerned about the pathogen turning into another pandemic. “Every year that this doesn’t happen,” Méndez said, “we’re being lucky.”
For poultry farmers, the outbreak has already come at a significant economic cost, striking tens of millions of birds in the United States. For wildlife, it threatens to disrupt ecosystems and push endangered animals closer to the brink of extinction.
“We’ve never seen such a massive spread of the virus in wild birds, and we’ve never seen such massive infections of wild mammals,” said Ron Fouchier, a virologist at the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands.
The trajectory of the virus, unprecedented both in its global spread and in the number of species infected, shows how dependent and connected humanity is to the natural world – and how farming practices that facilitate the flu can disrupt it.
‘I was not prepared’
Scientists first spotted the precursor to this flu strain in commercial geese in southern China in 1996. Over the next several years, it spread to poultry farms in the region, popping up occasionally in wild birds within flight range of infected farms.
Then, in 2005, some 1,500 wild geese and gulls dropped dead in a protected nature reserve in northwestern China, far from any poultry coops. The virus had found its way into the wild bird population.
From there, the virus rapidly spread across Asia, Africa, and Europe, popping up in seasonal outbreaks. But it was only after a genetic change that allowed the pathogen to spread in migrating birds around 2021 that the number of outbreaks exploded and the virus went global, establishing itself in North America that year and in South America the following.
Since then, the death toll has been staggering.
About 5,200 common cranes in Israel. More than 2,200 Dalmatian pelicans in Greece, about 40% of the species in southeastern Europe, and roughly 20,000 Sandwich terns in Europe, 17% of the northwest European breeding population. More than 18,000 dead barnacle geese in Scotland. And tens of thousands of gannets in Canada.
Last year, ornithologists found about 12,000 dead black-legged kittiwakes in Norway. By July, more than 500,000 birds died in South America, including about 41% of all Peruvian pelicans.
Flu symptoms depend on the bird, according to Jonas Waldenström, a disease ecology professor at Linnaeus University in Sweden. Telltale signs include tilting heads, struggling to stand, and tumbling when trying to take flight – all signs the virus has hit the nervous system.
“In some species, it’s pretty ugly,” he said.
The virus is reaching the ends of the Earth, killing brown skuas on islands near Antarctica and, for the first time just this winter, a polar bear in Alaska. Scientists worry it is only a matter of time before it reaches penguins and other vulnerable populations in Antarctica itself.
“The Antarctic situation is at a precipice,” said Michelle Wille, a virus ecologist at the University of Melbourne. “Many of the animal species that live there are found nowhere else in the world, and many are already facing substantial pressures due to things like fisheries and climate change.”
Scientists say the disease can jump between species when a wild animal eats a dead or dying bird, or when bird poop plops into a farm animal’s feed. So far, bird flu has infected coyotes, lions, tigers, grizzlies, raccoons, red foxes, and other terrestrial mammals, but only sporadically. It has also struck farms for mink and fox fur in Spain and Finland.
But a series of mass die-offs of marine mammals that congregate on beaches has biologists worried about the possibility of the virus evolving to spread directly from one mammal to another.
Last year, more than 5,000 sea lions were found dead in Peru. And more than 17,000 elephant seal pups succumbed to the virus in Argentina, representing at least 96% of the juvenile population. Nursing seal pups likely would not have caught the flu by eating birds. They instead may have gotten it from contaminated milk, water, aerosol, or feces, Fouchier said.
Valeria Falabella, a Wildlife Conservation Society marine biologist who has studied Argentina’s elephant seals for decades, had only ever seen a dead adult once before this flu outbreak. Seeing beaches of dozens dead was “absolutely devastating.”
“I was not prepared to see that,” Falabella said.
The risk to people
If a bird flu virus evolves to spread between seals, it is more likely to spread within other mammal populations, such as humans. “It’s quite a distance from a gannet to a human,” Waldenström said. “But from a seal to a human, we’re pretty much alike.”
Tracing how viruses hop between species is hard. In the past, humans have caught disease from animals after working on farms (the 1918 flu pandemic likely started in Kansas farm country) or after encroaching into wilderness (HIV likely jumped from chimpanzees when a hunter killed one for meat).
In the case of the latest flu strain, it is “very difficult to prove mammal-to-mammal transmission,” Fouchier said, adding that a genetic analysis of the virus found in the dead seals could provide clues about transmission.
So far, what we know about this strain of avian flu suggests an outbreak among humans is not imminent. The adaptation that the virus made to replicate in migratory birds – and thus spread across the globe – seems to have inhibited its ability to infect humans, Fouchier said.
“It is slightly less concerning to human health at present,” he said, compared to past flu viruses. But given the unprecedented nature of the ongoing outbreak, it’s hard to predict how it will evolve. “A typical bird flu virus never makes it into mammals at this scale,” he added.
The longer the virus persists in the environment, the more opportunities it has to fuel a new pandemic. Influenza viruses evolve much faster than the coronavirus behind the covid pandemic and other pathogens.
Right now, there is little to do to stop the spread of this flu virus among wildlife. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, for instance, is working with zoos to vaccinate critically endangered California condors.
“It’s hard to contain a virus that’s now on more or less all the continents,” Waldenström said. “There’s no putting the lid on that. It will run its course.”
But there are steps the poultry industry can take – monitoring for viruses at farms, disinfecting equipment, having workers wear protective gear – to reduce the risk of future outbreaks, according to Jonathan Sleeman, a science adviser for wildlife health at the U.S. Geological Survey. “One recognizes that this is a lot of effort,” he said.
For the surviving elephant seal population in Argentina, it may take years to come back. “They may never recover to the same level of population as they were before,” Sleeman said. Biologists are working to understand how many adult seals died.
Méndez, the biologist who likened the seal die-off to a disaster movie, worries how the recent outbreak may undo decades of conservation work.
Now, the virus has transformed their work. It’s about more than just aiding faraway animals – it’s about protecting people, too.
“We’re trying to protect the very functioning of our planet,” Méndez said. “We’re looking at this disruption through the lens of wildlife, but this is obviously very serious for humans as well.
An unprecedented flu strain is attacking hundreds of animal species. Humans could be next.
Over the past few years, a potent strain of H5N1 avian flu has jumped between species and raged through domestic and wild animal populations on every continent except Australia and Antarctica, crisscrossing the world along birds’ migratory routes.Dead seal pups are spread out on a beach after adults abandon the breeding area. Maxi Jonas photo
It felt like watching one of those blockbusters about the end of the world. Like witnessing an apocalypse, but in real life. Which, in a way, it was.
The beaches of Valdes Peninsula in Argentina, normally so packed with elephant seals that time of year it is impossible to stroll along the shore, were desolate except for hundreds of dark, rotting carcasses – nearly a whole season of seal pups dead, with gulls pecking at the remains.
Instead of the usual cacophony of guttural honks that drowns out the waves during breeding season, the eerie silence was only broken by the sound of a few remaining elephant seals shaking their heads, snot running down their protruding, namesake noses.
“You felt like a bomb had exploded,” said Martín Méndez, recalling the scene he witnessed in October during an annual survey of southern elephant seals in that stretch of coastal Patagonia.
“It is catastrophic,” added the marine biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, a New York-based nonprofit group. “This is the largest die-off for the species, period.”
Altogether, an estimated 17,000 elephant seal pups seals died there last year from avian influenza, victims of an unprecedented panzootic – a pandemic among animals – that has struck around 320 types of birds and mammals.
Over the past few years, a potent strain of H5N1 avian influenza has jumped between species and raged through domestic and wild animal populations on every continent except Australia and Antarctica, crisscrossing the world along birds’ migratory routes.
So far, cases of humans getting seriously sick from this strain of flu are rare. But the possibility of the quickly evolving influenza virus gaining the ability to be transmitted between from one mammal to another – and eventually, to humans– has scientists concerned about the pathogen turning into another pandemic. “Every year that this doesn’t happen,” Méndez said, “we’re being lucky.”
For poultry farmers, the outbreak has already come at a significant economic cost, striking tens of millions of birds in the United States. For wildlife, it threatens to disrupt ecosystems and push endangered animals closer to the brink of extinction.
“We’ve never seen such a massive spread of the virus in wild birds, and we’ve never seen such massive infections of wild mammals,” said Ron Fouchier, a virologist at the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands.
The trajectory of the virus, unprecedented both in its global spread and in the number of species infected, shows how dependent and connected humanity is to the natural world – and how farming practices that facilitate the flu can disrupt it.
‘I was not prepared’
Scientists first spotted the precursor to this flu strain in commercial geese in southern China in 1996. Over the next several years, it spread to poultry farms in the region, popping up occasionally in wild birds within flight range of infected farms.
Then, in 2005, some 1,500 wild geese and gulls dropped dead in a protected nature reserve in northwestern China, far from any poultry coops. The virus had found its way into the wild bird population.
From there, the virus rapidly spread across Asia, Africa, and Europe, popping up in seasonal outbreaks. But it was only after a genetic change that allowed the pathogen to spread in migrating birds around 2021 that the number of outbreaks exploded and the virus went global, establishing itself in North America that year and in South America the following.
Since then, the death toll has been staggering.
About 5,200 common cranes in Israel. More than 2,200 Dalmatian pelicans in Greece, about 40% of the species in southeastern Europe, and roughly 20,000 Sandwich terns in Europe, 17% of the northwest European breeding population. More than 18,000 dead barnacle geese in Scotland. And tens of thousands of gannets in Canada.
Last year, ornithologists found about 12,000 dead black-legged kittiwakes in Norway. By July, more than 500,000 birds died in South America, including about 41% of all Peruvian pelicans.
Flu symptoms depend on the bird, according to Jonas Waldenström, a disease ecology professor at Linnaeus University in Sweden. Telltale signs include tilting heads, struggling to stand, and tumbling when trying to take flight – all signs the virus has hit the nervous system.
“In some species, it’s pretty ugly,” he said.
The virus is reaching the ends of the Earth, killing brown skuas on islands near Antarctica and, for the first time just this winter, a polar bear in Alaska. Scientists worry it is only a matter of time before it reaches penguins and other vulnerable populations in Antarctica itself.
“The Antarctic situation is at a precipice,” said Michelle Wille, a virus ecologist at the University of Melbourne. “Many of the animal species that live there are found nowhere else in the world, and many are already facing substantial pressures due to things like fisheries and climate change.”
Scientists say the disease can jump between species when a wild animal eats a dead or dying bird, or when bird poop plops into a farm animal’s feed. So far, bird flu has infected coyotes, lions, tigers, grizzlies, raccoons, red foxes, and other terrestrial mammals, but only sporadically. It has also struck farms for mink and fox fur in Spain and Finland.
But a series of mass die-offs of marine mammals that congregate on beaches has biologists worried about the possibility of the virus evolving to spread directly from one mammal to another.
Last year, more than 5,000 sea lions were found dead in Peru. And more than 17,000 elephant seal pups succumbed to the virus in Argentina, representing at least 96% of the juvenile population. Nursing seal pups likely would not have caught the flu by eating birds. They instead may have gotten it from contaminated milk, water, aerosol, or feces, Fouchier said.
Valeria Falabella, a Wildlife Conservation Society marine biologist who has studied Argentina’s elephant seals for decades, had only ever seen a dead adult once before this flu outbreak. Seeing beaches of dozens dead was “absolutely devastating.”
“I was not prepared to see that,” Falabella said.
The risk to people
If a bird flu virus evolves to spread between seals, it is more likely to spread within other mammal populations, such as humans. “It’s quite a distance from a gannet to a human,” Waldenström said. “But from a seal to a human, we’re pretty much alike.”
Tracing how viruses hop between species is hard. In the past, humans have caught disease from animals after working on farms (the 1918 flu pandemic likely started in Kansas farm country) or after encroaching into wilderness (HIV likely jumped from chimpanzees when a hunter killed one for meat).
In the case of the latest flu strain, it is “very difficult to prove mammal-to-mammal transmission,” Fouchier said, adding that a genetic analysis of the virus found in the dead seals could provide clues about transmission.
So far, what we know about this strain of avian flu suggests an outbreak among humans is not imminent. The adaptation that the virus made to replicate in migratory birds – and thus spread across the globe – seems to have inhibited its ability to infect humans, Fouchier said.
“It is slightly less concerning to human health at present,” he said, compared to past flu viruses. But given the unprecedented nature of the ongoing outbreak, it’s hard to predict how it will evolve. “A typical bird flu virus never makes it into mammals at this scale,” he added.
The longer the virus persists in the environment, the more opportunities it has to fuel a new pandemic. Influenza viruses evolve much faster than the coronavirus behind the covid pandemic and other pathogens.
Right now, there is little to do to stop the spread of this flu virus among wildlife. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, for instance, is working with zoos to vaccinate critically endangered California condors.
“It’s hard to contain a virus that’s now on more or less all the continents,” Waldenström said. “There’s no putting the lid on that. It will run its course.”
But there are steps the poultry industry can take – monitoring for viruses at farms, disinfecting equipment, having workers wear protective gear – to reduce the risk of future outbreaks, according to Jonathan Sleeman, a science adviser for wildlife health at the U.S. Geological Survey. “One recognizes that this is a lot of effort,” he said.
For the surviving elephant seal population in Argentina, it may take years to come back. “They may never recover to the same level of population as they were before,” Sleeman said. Biologists are working to understand how many adult seals died.
Méndez, the biologist who likened the seal die-off to a disaster movie, worries how the recent outbreak may undo decades of conservation work.
Now, the virus has transformed their work. It’s about more than just aiding faraway animals – it’s about protecting people, too.
“We’re trying to protect the very functioning of our planet,” Méndez said. “We’re looking at this disruption through the lens of wildlife, but this is obviously very serious for humans as well.
JackPrintMD
Well-Known Angler
Talk about nazi, this women is racist.
MSNBC host Joy Reid condemned White evangelical Americans for supporting Trump, arguing it is because they want him to retake the country from other racial groups. | Fox News
www.foxnews.com
MSNBC host Joy Reid condemned White evangelical Americans for supporting Trump, arguing it is because they want him to retake the country from other racial groups. | Fox News
Joy Reid accuses White Christian Iowans of wanting to have people of color 'bow down' to them
MSNBC host Joy Reid condemned White evangelical Americans for supporting Trump, arguing it is because they want him to retake the country from other racial groups.
www.foxnews.com
Unbelievable holy cowTalk about nazi, this women is racist.
MSNBC host Joy Reid condemned White evangelical Americans for supporting Trump, arguing it is because they want him to retake the country from other racial groups. | Fox News
Joy Reid accuses White Christian Iowans of wanting to have people of color 'bow down' to them
MSNBC host Joy Reid condemned White evangelical Americans for supporting Trump, arguing it is because they want him to retake the country from other racial groups.
longcast
Well-Known Angler
Director of California LGBTQ group arrested in online child sting operation
A California man who serves as the executive director of an LBGTQ nonprofit was arrested as part of an online child predator sting, police said.
www.foxnews.com
JackPrintMD
Well-Known Angler
Is anyone surprised?Director of California LGBTQ group arrested in online child sting operation
A California man who serves as the executive director of an LBGTQ nonprofit was arrested as part of an online child predator sting, police said.
Freaks pronounce how they want to preform privately Publicly and then we need to be shocked what it looks like In reality?
wader
Well-Known Angler
You folks all seem to be of the mind that LGBT Communities are primarily the root of this. Don't know the prevelance but it ain't all them. Need to focus on something else 'cause I've been shaking me head for like a year now every time I see a post like this.
Science and case management experience has shown us that most child molesters are heterosexual
wader
Well-Known Angler
seriously?
www.yahoo.com
UC Irvine Students Hospitalized After Hackers Sent Disgusting Images to Their Discord Server
A disturbing cyberattack on Discord reportedly sent some University of California, Irvine students to the hospital on Wednesday, according to a CBS News report. Hackers infiltrated student Discord servers and bombarded them with graphic images that reportedly traumatized students, causing them...
wader
Well-Known Angler
WTF???
www.yahoo.com
Congressman Eric Burlison (R-MO) has waded into the discourse about UFOs — and in an outburst that probably says more about the state of US politics than unidentified objects in the sky, speculated that they might be "angels" sent by God himself.
Yes, you read that right. During a recent episode of That UFO Podcast this week, Burlison took the UFO conversation in a wild new direction.
"They may not fit exactly the Biblical narrative, but whenever I use the term 'angels,'" he said, "to me, it's synonymous with an extradimensional being."
"I think it's more likely that it would be something extradimensional than it would be within this dimension," Burlison argued. "And then, so what I'll say is that when you start talking about things in that nature, that they're extradimensional, well, in a lot of different scriptures, including the Bible, and others, that's really the way that you describe messengers of God or, you know, angels."
Strikingly, Burlison's musings come after he attended a classified briefing about UFOs this month, though he said after it that nothing he'd learned there had fundamentally shifted his worldview
================================
more absudity at the link...........
After Classified Briefing, Congressman Says UFOs May Be "Extradimensional" Angels
Congressman Eric Burlison (R-MO) has waded into the debate over recently surfaced videos of what journalist Jeremy Corbell described as UFOs — and has claimed that they were "angels" sent to us by God himself. One video, captured over the roofs of a military base in Iraq back in 201, shows what...
After Classified Briefing, Congressman Says UFOs May Be "Extradimensional" Angels
Congressman Eric Burlison (R-MO) has waded into the discourse about UFOs — and in an outburst that probably says more about the state of US politics than unidentified objects in the sky, speculated that they might be "angels" sent by God himself.
Yes, you read that right. During a recent episode of That UFO Podcast this week, Burlison took the UFO conversation in a wild new direction.
"They may not fit exactly the Biblical narrative, but whenever I use the term 'angels,'" he said, "to me, it's synonymous with an extradimensional being."
"I think it's more likely that it would be something extradimensional than it would be within this dimension," Burlison argued. "And then, so what I'll say is that when you start talking about things in that nature, that they're extradimensional, well, in a lot of different scriptures, including the Bible, and others, that's really the way that you describe messengers of God or, you know, angels."
Strikingly, Burlison's musings come after he attended a classified briefing about UFOs this month, though he said after it that nothing he'd learned there had fundamentally shifted his worldview
================================
more absudity at the link...........
Rick67
Well-Known Angler
All are mentally ill.
I am totally flabbergasted that this guy (I think he’s a guy) flip-flopped. This is one step under the View.
Seriously, you fell for this crap???
CLAIM: A video shows liberal filmmaker Michael Moore supporting former President Donald Trump in 2024.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The video is from Moore’s 2016 film “Michael Moore in TrumpLand,” released weeks before that year’s presidential election. It has been trimmed to make it seem as though the documentarian is backing then-Republican candidate Trump. In a longer excerpt from the same monologue, Moore argues that people will regret voting for Trump when they find out he “wasn’t going to do a damn thing for them.”
THE FACTS: After Trump scored a record-setting win in the Iowa caucuses on Monday, the edited clip was shared on social media to falsely claim Moore recently expressed support for the frontrunner in the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
“Who did NOT have this on their bingo card for 2024?? #holdtheline,” reads the caption on one Instagram post sharing the clip. Text on the video itself reads: “Michael Moore Supporting Trump.”
Michael Moore Trump Comment
Time to listen to the entire talk from his 2016 film...
Enjoying your Kool-Aid? Multiple sites, not just AP saying it's total BS. AAMOF, that "clipped, clip" has been around your sheep herd's sites since 2016. Of course that means it must be true.AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Really you fell for this
Did you actually watch the entire, actual 2016 clip to hear the ending that "Sadie" clipped out? I know you didn't so here it is in its entirety.
This clipped, clip was shared multiple times in 2016 by many, including DJT, claiming Michael Moore was backing him up.
In case your sarcasm deficient, here's some help:
Crucially, the clip shared on X also leaves out the rest of Moore's monologue in which he argues that Trump voters were being duped.
In the full clip, available via Moore's YouTube channel, Moore went on to argue that the "rightfully angry people" who voted for Trump would discover they had "used the ballot as an anger management tool, and now you're f*****."
"When the rightfully angry people of Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin find out after a few months in office that President Trump wasn't going to do a damn thing for them, it will be too late to do anything about it," Moore said.
"But I get it: you wanted to send a message, you had righteous anger, and justifiable anger. Well, message sent."
How about a nice cold Bud Light with your Crow dinner?
Rick67
Well-Known Angler
I knew before you wasted your time it was 2016.
And that's why you posted it to make people think something new had happened.
Typical FAKE NEWS & FALSE RERESENTATION your brand of Kool-Aid makes folks do and believe. Destroys any veracity of you posts, but you knew that...
Rick67
Well-Known Angler
wader
Well-Known Angler
WTF???
www.yahoo.com
Fact Check: At Concord Campaign Stop, Trump Says Nikki Haley Was 'in Charge of Security' on Jan. 6
In a January 2024 campaign speech, Trump appeared to blame rival GOP candidate Nikki Haley for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
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