Going, going.....

Well, we didn't have to wait long for a significant change in the ice bridge.Here's today's pic.

An ecological disaster?

There are reports more than one million mutton bird chicks have died on Babel Island off north-east Tasmania.
See here

The Aboriginal Land Council has closed mutton bird harvesting on the island after reports the bird population has been decimated.

An aboriginal spokesperson says, "Overfishing in Tasmanian and Australian waters means that the adult birds cannot compete with the lack of food that they need to feed the chicks."

But that doesn't seem to add up. Surely there would be plenty of krill left for the shearwater if the fish were removed from the ecosystem. OTOH, perhaps too many of the other fish and squid that comprise the balance of the shearwater's diet are removed. Can't find anything about this as yet.
On the next day, however, I hear this report regarding the continuing decline in the Wilkins Ice Shelf on the west antarctic.


Can't find reference to this on the ABC website but here is the web version.
The ice shelf is showing signs of breaking up, the latest happening just a couple of days ago. There has been a reported increase in temperature over West Antarctica of 2.5deg.C.


It seems more likely that changes in the sea temperature are changing the patterns of krill availability. Even though shearwaters will travel thousands of miles for one feed for their chicks, it seems that for these parents in Tasmania, that's not far enough. It's not obvious from what I've heard so far whether all the birds have successfully hatched their eggs, and have had trouble only since starting to feed them, or whether they were affected before this.



It looks like the Wilkins Shelf will go the same way as Larsen B did a few years ago. Meanwhile we can keep an eye on Wilkins here.