Thousands Of Animals Dying Due To Record Breaking Temperatures

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Bats are dropping from trees, kangaroos are collapsing in the Outback and gardens are turning brown. While North America freezes under record polar temperatures, the Southern hemisphere is experiencing the opposite extreme as heat records are set in Australia after the hottest year ever.

Weather forecasters in Australia said some parts of the sparsely populated Pilbara region along the rugged Northwest coast on Thursday were approaching 50 C (122 F). The record high of 50.7 C (123.3 F) was set in 1960 in Oodnadatta, a South Australia state.

Brazil is also sizzling, with the heat index reaching 49 C (120 F). Zookeepers in Rio de Janeiro were giving animals ice pops to beat the heat.

The late arrival of the monsoon in northern Australia, which has a cooling effect, is contributing to the searing heat, said Karly Braganza, the manager of climate monitoring at the Bureau of Meteorology.

So far, this year’s heat wave, which started around Christmas and has moved counterclockwise across Australia’s north, is not as extensive or prolonged as last year’s. But it would likely continue and move toward Southern Australian states, Braganza predicted.

“Certainly looking at the forecast over the next week, it’s looking like that heat is going to continue,” he said.

Since Dec. 27, records have been set at 34 locations across Australia — some by large margins — where temperature data has been collected for at least 40 years, mostly in Queensland and New South Wales states. In the mining town of Narrabi in New South Wales, the new record of 47.8 C (118 F) exceeded the previous record by 3.6 C (6.5 F)

The extreme temperatures come on the heels of Australia’s hottest year on record, beating the previous record year of 2005, with mean temperatures 1.2 C (2.2 F) above the 1961-90 average.

The heat wave in Australia has taken a toll on wildlife, too. In Winton, famous for being one of the hottest spots in Queensland a “large number” of parrots, kangaroos and emus have recently been found dead in the parched landscape, said Tom Upton, chief executive of Winton Shire Council.

“That’s as much to do with the extended dry as it is with the heat wave,” he said.

At least 50,000 bats had been killed by the heat in the state’s Southeast, said Louise Saunders, president of the Queensland animal welfare group Bat Conservation and Rescue. Heat-stressed bats — including the Black Flying Foxes, Little Red Flying Foxes and the endangered Grey-Headed Flying Foxes — cling to trees and urinate on themselves in a bid to reduce their body temperatures, she said.

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“As they succumb, they just fall in heaps at the base of trees,” Saunders said. “You can have 250 or more — it’s like dripping chocolate — all dying at the base of trees. It’s an enormous animal welfare concern,” she added.

It’s clear that our planet is shifting on both a physical and energetic level. We are seeing that there is now a threat to many populations in areas where climate is revealing its surprising and devastating tactics. These signs of change are sweeping the globe backed by the fantastical power of a seemingly ruthless mother nature. It acts as a reminder of our situational mortality, and should vie as an imminent wake-up call for the rest of mankind. The question is not whether we can stop the planet’s current path, that fate is left up to the inherent and persistent order of nature, but more importantly the question is how swiftly and efficiently can we come together to devise a solution that protects as much of our bio-sphere as possible, meaning all wildlife, plant life, and people. This is one of our greatest contemporary crises’, one which has a limited timeline.

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Sources:

1.) http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-08/hundred-thousand-dead-bats-after-qld-heatwave-rspca-says/5190644

2.) http://news.discovery.com/animals/100000-bats-are-killed-by-australian-heatwave-140109.htm


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