Dozens of dead #SeaBirds found on the coast of #Kivalina, #Alaska, #USA

Kivalina residents were greeted with an unwelcome surprise on their beaches last week. People driving four-wheelers along the coast counted dozens of dead seabirds scattered across the ground.

“(They were) both nearby and far away, all down the coastline going south,” said resident Rojo Adams. “We stopped counting at 65.”

Adams said most of the birds were black, though a few were white or mixed color. Resident Janet Mitchell took several photos around the same time. They, too, show black and white birds, along with one puffin. She said most of the birds she found were nearest town and there weren’t many further north.

The birds didn’t appear to have been shot or killed by people, Adams said.

“There were maybe four or five that had missing feathers from the neck area and maybe two that were partially eaten (or) might have been run over,” she said. “(I’m) not too sure. They were all along the coastline and only a few near the grass line.”

Fellow resident Fran Douglas said she spotted the birds while taking family members back home on a four-wheeler.

“At first I thought, huh, what happened to the birds,” she said. “Then I got alarmed.”

She said she counted about 20 to 30 medium-sized birds with black backs and white bellies spaced out along the entire beach of the island.

“My intuition tells me there’s probably more past the island,” Douglas said. “(There was) no blood; (it) just seemed to be a mass die-off.”

Courtesy of thearcticsounder.com

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