[obol] Fwd: Oregon Beached Risso's Dolphins & Beached Blue-footed Boobies in Oct.-Nov. 2013--a Connection? [Doubtful Connection]--2nd try

From: Range Bayer <range.bayer@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Oregon Birders OnLine <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 20:39:45 -0800

Hi,

I tried posting the following update to my posting, but it was not
posted to OBOL and was sent to the Moderator because

">> Post to list obol
Post submitted to moderator for reason: Overquoting: 249 lines quoted
in a block (150 max allowed):

I removed my original posting, so hopefully this message will go
through.  If so, see my earlier posting about this subject.

Cheers,

Range Bayer

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Range Bayer <range.bayer@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 8:01 PM
Subject: Re: Oregon Beached Risso's Dolphins & Beached Blue-footed
Boobies in Oct.-Nov. 2013--a Connection? [Doubtful Connection]
To: Oregon Birders OnLine <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Lincoln Co. Birding &
Nature Observing" <LCBNO@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Mike Patterson <celata@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi,

In response to my posting this afternoon, Jim Rice, Stranding
Coordinator of the Oregon Marine Mammal Stranding Network
(http://mmi.oregonstate.edu/ommsn), replied:

"... it's not all that unusual for Risso's dolphins to be seen off our
coast.  I've heard of numerous sightings of them within 10's of miles
of shore in the 8 years I've been here. That being the case, it's not
all that surprising to us when they strand, as it likely reflects that
certain individual animals had moved closer than usual to shore
(perhaps because they were following prey or perhaps due to illness).
In any event, they need not  travel across latitudes beyond their
normal range to reach Oregon, as I suspect is true of the boobies.
Moreover, the three recently stranded Risso's dolphins were all found
relatively freshly dead, indicating that they had died very close to
or on the beach and had not drifted ashore as carcasses from any
significant distances. Our pathology results on the dolphins are still
pending but at this point I don't see any reason to suspect a
connection to the blue-footed booby mortalities."

Since the Risso's appeared to die close to shore, then my scenario of
their possibly dying in the same place, and the boobies being beached
first because they were lighter and higher in the water column than
the Risso's fails.

I found the paper on stranded cetaceans in the Pacific Northwest that
I had thought about this afternoon.  During 1930-2002, there were a
total of 9 stranding reports of Risso's Dolphins (4 reports in Oregon
and 5 reports in Washington; 9 individual animals in total) (Table 1
in http://www.cascadiaresearch.org/reports/JCRMStrandPaper.pdf).
However, while the report was for 1930-2002, observation and recording
effort has increased much more in recent decades.  For example, p. 88
of this report notes: "Records of cetaceans stranded alive or dead on
the beach prior to 1989 were collected on an opportunistic basis and
were not maintained in a computerised database."  Accordingly, the
frequency of strandings is not as rare in Oregon as 4 in 72 years
(1930-2002) because records of strandings prior to 1989 may not have
been maintained.

So Jim Rice's report make it most likely that the recent beached
Risso's dolphins and Blue-footed Boobies were 2 independent, rare
events that happened within about 3 weeks of each other on the same
part of the Oregon Coast.  Interesting!

Cheers,

Range Bayer, Newport

On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 5:04 PM, Range Bayer <range.bayer@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[rest clipped because it exceeded OBOL quoted lines--see my post the
afternoon of Nov. 22.]


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[obol] Fwd: Oregon Beached Risso's Dolphins & Beached Blue-footed Boobies in Oct.-Nov. 2013--a Connection? [Doubtful Connection]--2nd try

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