this is unnerving - Arctic Geese Skip Migration

[ensho]

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/40502


In the Fall of 2007, tens of thousands of small arctic geese called Pacific brant (Branta bernicla nigricans) decided not to go south for the winter.

For these long-haul migratory birds, it was a dramatic choice -- they usually spend the cold months munching their favorite eel grass in the waters off Mexico's Baja peninsula. But changes in Earth's climate have so affected them that the barren windswept lagoons of western Alaska are looking more and more appealing.
-snip-
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changes

[Doremus]

1. K&R

[FirstLight]

2. Wow...that can't be good

I have been watching the geese flying formations around here for the past month, gearing up...but they never seem to leave either, wonder if the flocks trade off, the ones that are here for the summer go south and the ones up north come down here? :shrug:

Climate is a big piece of this for sure. However, i thought about the falling magnetics over the past decade too, it is obviously affecting migration patterns as well.. look at the whales...

well, I guess all we can do is hang on and watch as the planet "resets" itself...humans will have little they can do to affect any kind of reversal...

[ensho]

3. true - hang on

nt

[omega minimo]

4. "Falling magnetics"?

:hi:

[loudsue]

8. Yes. The electromagnetic force surrounding the earth has been falling

for some time now.

[uppityperson]

20. What do you mean "falling"?

Dropping down to earth? Decreasing? Changing how?

[Kaleva]

5. We have wild turkeys now where I reside

They couldn't survive the harsh winters before.

[intheflow]

7. Doubtful.

The turkey is indigenous to North America, which includes Canada, though the bird was almost wiped out there due to over-hunting. My guess is the turkey was either re-introduced to your area of Michigan or it moved there because of habitat destruction elsewhere. But it was never too cold in any part of Michigan for wild turkeys.

[Kaleva]

10. Turkeys were not native to Upper Michigan

"Although native to the southern part of the state, wild turkeys were extirpated more than 100 years ago when the last known wild turkey in the state was killed in Van Buren County in 1897."

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10366_46403_46404-213508--,00.html

when I was a kid so many decades ago, I heard of wild turkeys living near the Wisconsin border but now it's not uncommon to see them them where I live. I also heard of private individuals trying to introduce turkeys in this region but the birds could not survive the winter unless their food supply was supplemented.

[truedelphi]

19. I agree with you. I remember wild turkeys

Roaming around the woods and prairies of Northern Illinois when I was in my teens.

Before the weather was warming up.

However much later on, my mom more or less adopted two wild canaries that visited her one summer. I was amazed that the weather had changed to the point that these birds, native to Southern Illinois, would be in Chicago land back yards.

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. Unnerving to say the least.

Downright frightening.

[Overseas]

9. K&R. Add this to the pile of alarming evidence

that atmospheric heating and deterioration is accelerating.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Ah but the world is not warming and humans can't have

a thing to do with it. Oh and did I also say the Earth is only 6,000 years old and dinos and humans lived together? (The last bit is technically correct if you realize birds are descendants of T.Rex... well not technically T.Rex but dinos nonetheless)

And we say Amen.

(Oh and :sarcasm: for those who need it)

[Kaleva]

12. Dramatic global climate change is going to happen...

and their really is nothing that can be done to prevent it. The process can be slowed down but not reversed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. But the industrial revolution had a bit to do with it, a large bit

and it is already leading to a great extinction event, and usually mass extinctions are not kind to apex species. On the bright side, life on earth will continue... just perhaps not with us.

[Kaleva]

15. True but no one is seriously proposing cutting green house emissions to zero levels.

Even if emissions could be reduced to 1990 levels, global climate change will happen.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. It is how serious it will be

Me. worst case scenario... unless humanity finds a way to leave this world... we are going to go extinct, and we did it ourselves.

There is a reason why my kids have feathers...

[Kaleva]

18. The Earth is ever changing.

The plates continue to move which in time will disrupt the ocean's currents. The currents play an important role in regulating the earth's mean temperature. When this happens, which it will, mass extinctions will take place even if humans had never existed.

But I'm getting off track here. Global climate change caused by humans will happen. It can be delayed but cannot be prevented.

[earth mom]

14. I can't stand reading threads like this-they break my heart.

:cry:

[starroute]

16. The Canada geese starting overwintering here some years ago

I live in southeastern Pennsylvania, and the geese always used to go south for the winter and then come back around the end of March. Now they just stick around -- I think largely because the lakes don't generally freeze over.

At most, if there's a cold snap for a week or two, you might see the V's heading out, but I suspect they only go as far as New Jersey, because they're always back once the cold breaks.

For that matter, when my kids were little -- in the 80's and early 90's -- I was always able to take them ice skating. The town would flood a hollow area at one end of the park and let it freeze. But that hasn't been possible for years.