How dare the biosphere of the Earth ever change?
(Alaska Dispatch) Dead seals littering beaches, bolts of fur dangling from deer, white worms squiggling in the meat of freshly killed grouse.
Incidents like these are some of the dozens of reports from the front lines of climate change in rural Alaska, where a volunteer army of observers is documenting unusual events to warn of potential health threats as new plants, bugs and animals migrate to the Far North.
My goodness, worms in dead grouse? Has that ever happened in the history of the world? And dead seals? I thought they lived forever!!!!1!!! Deer shedding? Good grief!
Odd insects that crawl like spiders and open and close their pincers while walking have been spotted in Kotzebue, said local observer Maija Lukin.
Boy howdy, how could new species that we’ve never seen before come about? Hasn’t there always just been a fixed amount?
“Insects that we have never seen are a threat to the ecosystem that we have here,” she wrote. “We don’t need new insects arriving and eating anything except mosquitoes!”
Love the qualifier at the end.
Taken together, the events can provide insight into important trends, such as the geographic range of deaths from sick seals that washed onto Alaska’s beaches, part of an “unusual mortality event” that began two years ago and prompted an international investigation by researchers. Why scores of seals got sick and died in that event is still unknown.
Unknown? Interesting, because the beginning of the article seemed to blame “climate change”.
