Ecologists say some bodies of water may already have passed the tipping points from which they may never recover
s David Klee nosed his boat out into the channels of Whangamarino, he saw the birds were dying. Hundreds were already dead, floating, the sheen of their feathers dulling in the scum near the banks of the river. Others, he could tell, would be dead soon: flocks that should have been sent flapping in alarm by the boat’s passage sat placid, unmoving in the water.. Instead of paddling, they start scooping their wings through the water to propel themselves forward, a grotesque butterfly stroke.
Thousands of birds have died at Whangamarino wetland during a botulism outbreak, caused by mass fish deaths that in turn were caused by high pollution levels.The birds of Whangamarino, a freshwater wetland covering 7,000 hectares in Waikato, in New Zealand’s North Island, are being killed by a botulism outbreak, a consequence of mass fish deaths, which in turn are prompted by flooding, algal blooms and high levels of pollutants including heavy nutrient load from farming.
– runoff from the fertiliser used to cultivate year-round grass, and the effluent of the cows that graze it.Photograph: Fish & Game, ecologists say some bodies of water in the region are reaching – or may have already passed – tipping points from which they may never bounce back. “We’re living it now,” says Fish & Game’s chief executive, Corina Jordan. “These systems are really resilient.
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