Endangered African Penguins, With Multiple Bee Stings, Are Found Dead (nytimes.com) 33
More than 60 endangered African penguins were recently found dead, all with multiple bee stings and no other external injuries, according to officials in a coastal city in South Africa where the birds regularly migrate. From a report: Sixty-three dead African penguins were found Friday at the Boulders Penguin Colony, in Simon's Town, about 25 miles south of Cape Town, in the southwest of the country. All the penguins had multiple bee stings, and "many dead bees were found at the site where the birds had died," according to a statement from the South African National Parks. "Therefore preliminary investigations suggest that the penguins died because of being stung by a swarm of Cape honey bees."
No external physical injuries were observed on any of the dead penguins, the statement said. The penguins migrate to the area annually. The bees found near the dead birds are native to the area, "usually coexist with wildlife" and "don't sting unless provoked," according to Dr. Alison Kock, a marine biologist at the South African National Parks. "We have never had a problem like this before," she said. The penguins had been stung around the eyes and on their flippers, areas not covered by feathers, Dr. Kock said.
No external physical injuries were observed on any of the dead penguins, the statement said. The penguins migrate to the area annually. The bees found near the dead birds are native to the area, "usually coexist with wildlife" and "don't sting unless provoked," according to Dr. Alison Kock, a marine biologist at the South African National Parks. "We have never had a problem like this before," she said. The penguins had been stung around the eyes and on their flippers, areas not covered by feathers, Dr. Kock said.
Addy-the-Pooh? (Score:2, Informative)
What else could it be?
Unfortunately I'll never know, since I can't possibly RTFA nor TFS.
story is paywalled (Score:5, Informative)
anyone got an open link? articles with paywalled main stories shouldn't get posted here.
Re:story is paywalled (Score:4, Informative)
More than 60 endangered African penguins were recently found dead, all with multiple bee stings and no other external injuries, according to officials in a coastal city in South Africa where the birds regularly migrate.
Sixty-three dead African penguins were found Friday at the Boulders Penguin Colony, in Simon’s Town, about 25 miles south of Cape Town, in the southwest of the country.
All the penguins had multiple bee stings, and “many dead bees were found at the site where the birds had died,” according to a statement from the South African National Parks. “Therefore preliminary investigations suggest that the penguins died because of being stung by a swarm of Cape honey bees.”
No external physical injuries were observed on any of the dead penguins, the statement said.
The penguins migrate to the area annually. The bees found near the dead birds are native to the area, “usually coexist with wildlife” and “don’t sting unless provoked,” according to Dr. Alison Kock, a marine biologist at the South African National Parks.
“We have never had a problem like this before,” she said.
The penguins had been stung around the eyes and on their flippers, areas not covered by feathers, Dr. Kock said.
“The feathers over the penguin’s body are densely packed and it’s unlikely the bees stings could have penetrated through these feathers,” Dr. Kock said in an email. “On the other hand, the skin around the eyes and flippers have no feathers and the stings could penetrate in those regions.”
Tests are underway to determine if a toxin or a disease was a factor in the penguins’ deaths, park officials said. So far, officials believe the bees’ nest was disturbed, causing “a mass of bees to flee the nest, swarm and they became defensive and aggressive,” Dr. Kock said. “Unfortunately the bees encountered a group of penguins on their flight path.”
African penguins are an endangered species with a population of only about 41,700 adults, as of 2020, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.
The birds live mainly in coastal areas of Namibia and South Africa, according to the African Wildlife Foundation, and can reach up to 28 inches in height and 11 pounds in weight. They come ashore to breed, shed old feathers and rest.
Two oil spills, in 1994 and 2000, killed around 30,000 penguins, according to the foundation.
The birds’ population has been decreasing because overfishing has reduced their source of food, according to Oceana, a conservation group.
But the penguins are gaining wider recognition.
The African penguins’ summer migration to Simon’s Town was recently featured in a Netflix documentary, “Penguin Town,” narrated by the actor Patton Oswalt.
“Some penguins may be emperors,” Mr. Oswalt says. “In this place, they are gods.”
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There IS competiton. NYT is not the sole owner of this story. The goal of the consumer should always be to try and get stuff for the lowest possible price; the consumer should not be colluding with the creator in order to pay more than the natural market would suggest.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
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That's fine as long as you understand what "lowest possible price" actually means. Right now it's the growth of Amazon and Walmart and the death of local shops, and outsourcing to places like India and China with the death of local manufacturing and customer service. It also means the growth of Google, Facebook, and other such sites because "lowest possible price" that's acceptable is free E-mail, messaging, and forums with your personal information being the "highest possible price" extracted from your che
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Right now it's the growth of Amazon and Walmart and the death of local shops
A person's ideals are part of the cost. If someone cares about local shops, they pay more in money to buy local but not their ideals. Like anything, they should weigh what their ideals are worth. If the local shop wants 3x as much as amazon, is it still worth it? To some, yes.
Re: story is paywalled (Score:2)
At least in the elder days of print news I could buy a single newspaper to read a story.
With online news, you now have to subscribe. I have to give my payment information and email to the publisher and entangle myself into a long term business arrangement with them.
When are they going to rediscover the powerful payment technology of the 1990s?
Dear Slashdot (Score:2, Informative)
I'm a moron and can't take 5 seconds to open a new tab and paste the url into https://archive.is/ [archive.is]
Instead I'd rather waste more time to lodge a complaint.
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If you aren't a subscriber, why do you allow them to set cookies on your browser?
Bring out the gallows (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously, paywalled submissions should be banned, or at least handled properly by editing staff.
Do ya jobs.
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Because *holy crap* paying for quality journalism is a frigging crime. Or should everything be free as in speech?
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Key phrase: quality journalism.
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People are clamoring to read it so it has enough value to disturb the rest of us.
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You've got to realize that the New York Times doesn't have a full time guy sitting in south africa for wildlife stories right? This was pulled from another news source, word for word...who published it prior to the NYT getting a hold of it.
One story in India thebharatexpressnews.com
One story in Australia bestinau.net
Curiously only the NYT has a credited writer. Perhaps their legal team needs to catch up on copyright infringement. ... unless the publish dates seem to be sooner in the other articles...even
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Isn't it your own job to set your browser to block cookies you don't need?
People think (Score:2)
Killer Bees? (Score:2)
Were these the hyper aggressive African honey bees we've been hearing about since the 70's?
Also, I never knew there was such a thing as African Penguins.
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Took the typing right out of my fingers. I guess those African honey bees really are mean as hell. And South Africa... it really is pretty south but not quite approaching the south pole. But it gets snow once in a while, which just doesn't seem right from my very pop culture TV/movie knowledge of the place. https://www.distance.to/South-... [distance.to] compare to Oregon and the North Pole... https://www.distance.to/Oregon... [distance.to]
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Penguins are not just in Antarctica, although the particular species that live there need to be in the cold environment. There are warm-weather (even tropical) penguins as well. There are penguins in Africa, Australia, South America, and even the Galapagos islands which are very close to the equator. The one thing that they have in common isn't climate, it's that they all live in the southern hemisphere. There are no penguins in the northern hemisphere (except perhaps in zoos). I cringe every time I see Chr
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I did not know that, thanks!
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There are penguins in the tropics. African penguins are also known as jackass penguins, because of their braying-like noise.
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Just plain old African bees. They are more aggressive. Just think of European and North American bees as docile.
How does their unladen ground speed compare?
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Apis mellifera capensis (Cape honey bees).
"Killer" Africanized bees are crossbreds of
Apis mellifera scutellata (East African lowland honey bees)
with various European honey bee subspecies such as
Apis mellifera ligustica (Italian honey bee) and
Apis mellifera iberiensis (Iberian honey bee).
See https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cape_and_African_Honey_Bee_range.svg [wikimedia.org] where the Cape honey bees are in the green area.
TFA (Score:1)
By Azi Paybarah
Sept. 21, 2021, 5:28 a.m. ET
More than 60 endangered African penguins were recently found dead, all with multiple bee stings and no other external injuries, according to officials in a coastal city in South Africa where the birds regularly migrate.
Sixty-three dead African penguins were found Friday at the Boulders Penguin Colony, in Simon’s Town, about 25 miles south of Cape Town, in the southwest of the country.
All the penguins had multiple bee stings, and “many dead bees were fou
Question (Score:1)
Were the bees Africanized? :)
Another penguin also kille by bees about 10km away (Score:3)