Natural History Wanderings

Science News reports

February 2011 was a bad month for seabirds living on the Midway, Kure and Laysan atolls. A winter storm swept across this portion of the North Pacific, with winds exceeding 115 kilometers per hour that whipped water across the low-lying islands. Then the Tohoku tsunami brought another bout of high waves. The winds and water wiped out some 250,000 Laysan albatross and 30,000 black-footed albatross nests, and an unknown number of adult Bonin petrels, great frigatebirds, red-footed boobies and other seabirds drowned, were trapped beneath fallen trees or killed by other means.

Though a seabird’s life is rarely easy, that winter was especially hard. But scientists now warn that it may be just the beginning — sea level rise could result in even greater losses in coming years.

Read full story at  Some seabirds will be hit hard by sea level rise | Science News