Saturday, February 22, 2020

DOLPHINS JOIN SURFERS

California bills aim to shut down dog blood banks accused of abuse, negligence

Alicia Victoria Lozano

California-based animal welfare activist Robyn Black wasn't ready to say goodbye to her beloved corgi, Sir Winston, when he suddenly came down with an autoimmune disease six years ago. She told her veterinarian to do whatever was needed to save the 5-year-old dog's life.

© Courtesy Robyn Black Image: Sir Winston's grave

Black dropped off Winston at her Sacramento vet's office on a Friday afternoon. By Sunday evening, the animal clinic was running low on its supply of canine donor blood.

She frantically called other veterinarians in the area and finally found a clinic with blood in stock. But there was a catch.

State law prevented the clinic, located within the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, from selling donor blood to another clinic. She later learned that there are only two commercial animal blood donor banks approved to operate in the entire state.

Without access to the life-saving blood, Winston died the next day.

"It was devastating," she said, choking back tears. "He was my baby. If I had only known, I could have tried to do something before I got into that situation."

© Courtesy Robyn Black Image: Sir Winston with owner Robyn Black

Two new bills before the state Legislature could have saved Winston's life. SB 1115, introduced this week by state Sen. Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, would expand the state's animal blood supply by allowing community-based donations similar to human blood banks. AB1953, introduced in January by Assemblyman Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica, would allow licensed veterinarians to collect and sell canine donor blood.

Both bills would phase out closed colonies that house hundreds of dogs, mostly greyhounds, for the sole purpose of draining their blood. Bloom's bill, however, would also allow canine donor blood to flow into California from other states.

Greyhounds are often used for blood donation because they have a universal canine blood type. Supporters of the new bills feel that the animals living in the closed colonies are being mistreated, while opponents argue that closed colonies allow suppliers to maintain strict quality control over the blood supply.

Currently, California is the only state to ban voluntary animal blood banks. Keeping colonies closed allows the state to tightly regulate the donor blood supply and protect against the spread of disease, according to the California Veterinary Medical Board.

"We can do so much better for the animals in our state and we will aim to craft a bill that balances animal welfare and the need for safe, essential animal blood through voluntary, community-based collection methods," Bloom said of his bill.

© Courtesy Robyn Black Image: Sir Winston, the corgi and a pal

Both bills reconcile previous proposals by Bloom and Wilk that failed in the state Legislature. Bloom's AB366 was pulled in January after stalling last year. It, too, would have phased out closed colonies and allowed for the introduction of voluntary blood banks.

Bloom supporters say that version died because Wilk introduced SB202, which gained traction after winning an endorsement from animal rights group PETA. But Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, vetoed Wilk's bill in October saying it did not go far enough to protect animals from abuse because it did not set a timeline for closing the colonies.

This time around, Wilk is working with animal rights groups to develop a set of metrics that must first be met before shuttering closed colonies. Wilk declined to comment on what those metrics would be, but said he is open to collaborating with Bloom on overhauling the state's draconian animal donor blood laws.

"Maybe we can Kumbaya it," Wilk said.

NBC repeatedly reached out to both commercial animal blood banks in California, Hemopet based in Garden Grove and Dixon-based Animal Blood Resources International. Neither returned calls or emails seeking comment.

Shannon Keith, who runs the animal welfare advocacy group Beagle Freedom Project, said she spent several months reviewing conditions at Hemopet. She volunteered to walk dogs and was horrified by the conditions she witnessed there.

"The filth was out of control," she said. "There were rat droppings and cockroaches crawling out from under the grates."

Keith adopted one dog that looked especially abused.

"His skin was raw. He was skinny and looked like he was dying," she said.

PETA uncovered similar conditions in an expose published in 2018.

"The greyhounds - like all dogs, were eager to run and play and longed for companionship - were taken out of their cages only to be bled, walked briefly, or put into barren concrete-floor pens for a few minutes," PETA said of its findings.

In a lengthy response to the investigation, Hemopet founder Jean Dodds called the expose "misleading rhetoric" filled with "falsehoods."

Dodds houses about 200 greyhounds at the Garden Grove facility, which has operated since 1991, she said in the response. They are "unsuitable for the racing industry" and possess the universal canine blood type DEA4. The dogs exercise five times a day, live in large kennels and donate blood two or three times a month. All of the dogs are adoptable, according to Dodds.

Part of the ongoing debate centers around the suitability of animal donor blood. Canines must be screened for infectious disease, which could be carried by even seemingly healthy dogs.

In a letter to Bloom's office, the state Veterinary Medical Board executive committee cautioned against opening up the blood supply, saying closed colonies operate under strict standards and are regularly inspected by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Opening the blood supply, which is used for life-saving procedures throughout the nation, could "risk the health and safety of all canine patients," the board said.

"Rather than risk the health and safety of animals in California and nationwide, perhaps a better solution would be to improve current colony requirements and enhance enforcement mechanisms," the board added.

Dr. Sean Owens, outgoing medical director of UC Davis' veterinary medicine school, believes that with modern science, it's possible to safely obtain blood from community donor banks.

"We do not incarcerate humans solely for the purposes of providing blood for other humans," he said. "The analogy also fits with dogs."

© Courtesy Robyn Black Image: Sir Winston, the corgi

Six years after her dog's death, lobbyist Robyn Black still grieves Winston's loss. Last week she laid flowers at his grave to honor his memory. She said three long years passed before she could bring new pups, Thatcher and Charles Dickens, into her home. Now, the dog mom worries about what might happen if they get sick and need blood donations.

If the state were to allow community blood banks, she would not hesitate to volunteer Thatcher and Charles Dickens. But hearing rumors that the state's existing canine donor facilities might abuse their dogs gives her serious pause, she said.

"What these dogs endure, being harvested for their blood, just breaks my heart," she said.

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The Colorado River is drying up because of climate change, putting millions at risk of 'severe water shortages'

By Drew Kann, CNN

The Colorado River -- which provides water to more than 40 million people from Denver to Los Angeles -- has seen its flow dwindle by 20 percent compared to the last century, and scientists have found that climate change is mainly to blame.

© Rhona Wise/AFP/Getty Images The Colorado River wraps around Horseshoe Bend in Page, Arizona. A new study finds that this vital river is in grave danger due to rising temperatures.

The researchers found that more than half of the decline in the river's flow is connected to increasing temperatures, and as warming continues, they say the risk of "severe water shortages" for the millions that rely on it is expected to grow.

For each 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming averaged across the river's basin, the study found that its flow has decreased by nearly 10%. Over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries, the region has already warmed by an average of roughly 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

The study also examined the impact that action to curb pollution of heat-trapping gases could have on the river's water supply.

Some decrease in the flow is likely no matter what actions are taken, but without any cuts to emissions, the report says the river's discharge could shrink by between 19% and 31% by the middle of this century.

The study -- conducted by US Geological Survey scientists Chris Milly and Krista A. Dunne and published Thursday in the journal Science -- adds urgency to efforts to protect one of the country's most vital rivers.

The Colorado River starts high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, before snaking its way across the Southwest on its way to the Gulf of California.

But by the time it arrives there, its flow is reduced to a trickle, says Brad Udall, a senior climate scientist at Colorado State University who has studied the Colorado River basin for 30 years.

En route, water is diverted to supply major cities like Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Diego, as well as farms in the US and Mexico that grow the vegetables that feed millions around the world.

All told, Milly and Dunne say the river supports around $1 trillion of economic activity each year.

"Without this river, American cities in the Southwest would dry up and blow away," Udall said.

However, the river's problems start well before it reaches people's faucets.

Global warming is taking a severe toll on the snowpack that feeds the river, the scientists found. As temperatures increase, snow cover in the region is declining, meaning less energy from the sun is reflected back into space and more warms the ground as heat.

This triggers a vicious cycle that leads to even more evaporation and therefore, less water supply.

The river's flow has also been diminished by a severe drought that's spanned much of the last two decades, leaving its two main reservoirs -- Lake Powell and Lake Mead -- barely half full.

Access to the Colorado River's water has long been a contentious issue among the seven states that rely on it.

Last year, a new deal was reached that will govern the rights to it until 2026, but Udall says negotiations will get under way later this year to determine how to divvy up the water in a drier, more arid future.

Udall says these new findings show that the only way to save the river is by addressing the root cause of the problem: climate change.

"The science is crystal clear — we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately," he says. "We now have the technologies, the policies and favorable economics to accomplish greenhouse gas reductions. What we lack is the will."

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly showed the location of Denver, the map has now been updated.

How a bizarre, monster fish hoodwinked researchers and reeled in a wave of citizen scientists

A woman in Denmark has a chunk of a massive creature in her freezer, next to her peas. In New Zealand, a fisherman has pieces of the giant in a bottle of vodka. And in Alaska, a bush pilot hops in his seaplane to hunt down samples of the colossus, known to some as an enormous 4,000-pound floating head.

© National Parks South Australia, Facebook In March of 2019, an ocean sunfish washed ashore at Coorong National Park in Australia. Viral photos of the find circulated on social media.

No, it's not the Loch Ness monster. And yes, it's safe to say that the behemoth that washed up on a beach in Southern California a year ago has created a worldwide furor. Scientists were shocked to find the weird fish – known as a "hoodwinker," or Mola tecta – in North America. When photos broke of the California find, fascination mounted around the globe.

"There’s this 'mola militia' that lives underground," said Patrick Webster, social media content creator for Monterey Bay Aquarium. "But every time something goes viral with a mola, people say, 'that’s my favorite animal!'"

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Now, citizen scientists from South Africa to Japan are helping researchers find out why the weird fish ended up thousands of miles from home.

People in four corners of the Earth are hooked – the hoodwinker is reeling them in.

Photos look unreal: Huge, weird fish washes up on Australia beach
Holy Mola mola!

News spread quickly when the curious creature washed up along the beach at Coal Oil Point Reserve, a coastal nature preserve near Santa Barbara, California, on Feb. 19, 2019.

Coal Oil Point conservation specialist Jessica Nielsen promptly ventured down to the beach to investigate. She took measurements of the dead beached sunfish and posted photos to the Reserve’s Facebook page. Nielsen assumed it was an ocean sunfish (Mola mola), a common find along the west coast.

"Holy Mola mola," Nielsen said in the post. "It is even taller (fin tip to fin tip) than it is long!"

UC Santa Barbara professor Thomas Turner saw Nielsen's post and rushed down to the beach with his wife and 4-year-old son. Turner posted a series of wild photos to iNaturalist, a social platform that allows users to map and share observations.

Researchers in Australia soon hopped in the game. One researcher saw the post and wondered if it was a hoodwinker, so he flagged it to Marianne Nyegaard, a marine scientist at Murdoch University who discovered and named the hoodwinker.

"I literally nearly fell off my chair when I opened the first photo," said Nyegaard, who confirmed that it was a hoodwinker. She later verified the ID through genetic testing.
Mermen, unicorns and the hoodwinker

The hoodwinker is one of five different species of sunfish, which include the world’s heaviest bony fish. "Every tropical and temperate ocean has sunfish in it," said Tierney Thys, a freelance researcher writing a book on sunfish. "They have many world records."

Not only are sunfish heavy, but they grow rapidly, putting on up to 800 pounds in 15 months, Thys said.

"Their growth rate is something that is fascinating," said Michael Howard, senior aquarist at Monterey Bay Aquarium. "We’ve had some fish in our aquarium grow (4 inches) in one month."

They may be bony fish, but their skeletons are strange. "You can cut through them with a knife, super easily. They’re more like cartilage," Thys said.

Their skin, like white coconut meat, can be more than an inch thick. They’re also the only known example of an animal that has vertically oriented wings. They don't even have a tailfin – it's more of a rudder.

It's extremely rare to spot a hoodwinker in California, Thys said. Unlike other sunfish species, the hoodwinker doesn't have a bump on its head or chin. It doesn't have a protruding snout or swollen ridges on its body.

Nyegaard discovered the species in 2013. She was analyzing biopsies sent from fishing vessels when she stumbled across a unique genetic sequence.

Finding the fish itself was much harder: It took Nyegaard more than a year to locate it, eventually finding one on the beach in Christchurch, New Zealand. She named the fish Mola tectus – tectus meaning "hidden" or "disguised" in Latin.

The hoodwinker is likely smaller than its sister species, which can grow up to nearly 11 feet and nearly 5,000 pounds, Nyegaard said. The largest hoodwinker on record is nearly 8 feet tall and dates to the 1960s.

But that's not the first documented hoodwinker. Nyegaard poured over old texts in many languages that reference sunfish. In one 16th-century book of curious and bizarre creatures compiled by Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner, drawings of the sunfish feature alongside images of mermen and sea monsters. Another, from 1738, describes sunfish alongside unicorns.

Nyegaard could find only one work of old literature that described the hoodwinker – a 1889 stranding on the Dutch coast. So, of course, Nyegaard tracked down that preserved specimen. All this time, it had been tucked away behind a stuffed giraffe at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, Netherlands.
Why the hoodwinker was in California

Most hoodwinker sightings have happened around New Zealand and Australia. Last year's Santa Barbara sighting was the first time researchers became aware of hoodwinkers in North America. But months later, in August and December, divers spotted at least two in Monterey Bay.

Scientists say it's still too early to say why the hoodwinkers are in California, but some have offered hunches.

"It is possible that Hoodwinker sunfish wander widely, and the sightings off west coast North America are of occasional strays," Nyegaard said. "But we do not know if these odd sightings are a relatively new thing – perhaps linked to warming oceans and changing ocean currents – or if the occasional straying sunfish is unrelated to climate change."

Others say the hoodwinker may have come to the northern hemisphere during "the Blob" of 2014 and 2015, when a mass of warm water spread through the Pacific Ocean.

"During the blob, there was so much disruption of oceanography, it makes sense that a bunch of these animals could have punched through the equator like shwooop!" Webster said.

More: A 'blob' of warm ocean water killed 1 million seabirds in the Pacific, study says

Myron Peck, a professor of biological oceanography at the University of Hamburg, said he's seeing changes in populations of several fish species, including anchovy, tuna and boar fish. He called the hoodwinker mystery a "very challenging topic." Changes in ocean currents that influence jellyfish, which hoodwinkers feed on, may be partly responsible, Peck said.

"It will be impossible to attribute the occurrence of a single individual to climate change, but we are hearing about this type of phenomenon – animals outside their 'normal' range – on a pretty regular basis now," said John Pinnegar, scientific adviser at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science in the U.K.
On the hunt for the hoodwinker

Since last year's discovery in California, nearly 50 people worldwide – from the U.S., South Africa, Chile, Japan, the Philippines and across Europe – have contacted Nyegaard about potential hoodwinker sightings. While most sightings have turned out not to be hoodwinkers, people aren't deterred.

Most recently, a man from Belgium reached out to Nyegaard saying he had collected a stranded sunfish from his local beach and stashed it in his freezer.

In Christchurch, New Zealand, one man drove many miles up a beach on his quad bike to photograph and sample three stranded sunfish.

Nyegaard negotiated with the crew of one fishing vessel to give her tissue samples whenever they accidentally caught a sunfish before releasing it back into the sea. "We ended up settling on an exchange rate of a six pack of beer per sample," she said.

In California, Monterey Bay Aquarium has been helping Nyegaard and others assess photos and footage taken by locals. After the "exciting" sighting last February, Webster helped two groups who had taken video of sunfish identify their subjects as hoodwinkers. Webster shared one of the videos on the aquarium's Tumblr page.

That's when San Jose resident Lauren Wilson saw the post. An engineer and avid diver, Wilson had unknowingly photographed a hoodwinker in 2015. She was finishing up a dive with a friend when the pair spotted the huge shape nearby.

"It’s still the biggest one I’ve ever seen," Wilson said. "It was huge. I got a picture of it. We swam toward it a little bit, but they’re surprising fast. They look awkward, but they move quite quickly. That was the highlight of my month."

Wilson posted the photos on iNaturalist, but it wasn't until she saw a Facebook post from Monterey Bay Aquarium about a new sunfish species that she connected the dots. Wilson found Nyegaard's email online and sent her a link to the iNaturalist post. It was, indeed, a hoodwinker.

Nyegaard is now running a citizen science platform in Indonesia where participants identify individual sunfish based on their skin patterns. She's hoping to recover more tissue samples from hoodwinkers off the coast of the U.S. and from South America, where they have been appearing off Chile.

"Such samples are only possible to recover through the help of locals, so I am very keen to hear from anyone who sees stranded sunfish," she said. "This is where citizen science can be so powerful, as people these days can readily record what they see on their mobile phones. Over time this will build up a highly valuable database of our natural world and help us understand the changes that are occurring."

The jury's still out on why the hoodwinker is showing up in the northern hemisphere. Some say it's climate change. Some say it's natural population shifts. Others say it was there all along, hiding in plain sight, hoodwinking us.

Follow Grace Hauck on Twitter @grace_hauck.

Kobe's pilot had been disciplined by FAA over weather-related flight violation

By Hannah Fry, Los Angeles Times

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 16: A mural depicting deceased NBA star Kobe Bryant, painted by Isaac Pelayo, is displayed on a building on February 16, 2020 in Burbank, California. Numerous murals depicting Bryant have been created around greater Los Angeles following their tragic deaths in a helicopter crash which left a total of nine dead. A public memorial service honoring Bryant will be held February 24 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, where Bryant played most of his career with the Los Angeles Lakers. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)Next Slide
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3 SLIDES © Mario Tama/Getty Images

LOS ANGELES — The pilot of the helicopter that crashed into a Calabasas hillside last month, killing NBA star Kobe Bryant and eight others, violated federal flight rules in 2015 when he flew into busy airspace near Los Angeles International Airport despite being ordered not to by air traffic control, according to records from the Federal Aviation Administration obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Ara Zobayan was flying northbound in an AS350 chopper when he was denied clearance to traverse the airspace because weather conditions had reduced visibility below what is known as visual flight rules, or VFR, according to the enforcement action records obtained through a freedom of information act request.

The FAA said Zobayan took responsibility for the violation and underwent counseling, but faulted him for his lack of preparation. “Had Mr. Zobayan properly planned and reviewed current weather at LAX, he would have been able to anticipate the required action to transit … resulting in proper coordination,” the report says.

Federal authorities are investigating Zobayan’s actions during last month’s flight when he veered out of control after flying into heavy clouds. Zobayan also died in the flight.

On the May 2015 flight, Zobayan was flying for Island Express Helicopters, the same charter company where he worked for years leading up to the crash. It is not clear where Zobayan was traveling that day or whether he had any passengers.

Near the Hawthorne Airport and the 105 Freeway, he contacted a tower at LAX to gain clearance to fly through the airspace. The tower told Zobayan that the airfield was reporting less than three miles of visibility and a cloud ceiling at least 1,000 feet above the ground.

Zobayan, who was relying on his sight to guide him, responded with a request to continue under special VFR, which would grant him clearance to fly in weather conditions with less than the minimum visibility for regular visual flying. When the tower denied that request and told him to navigate around the airspace, Zobayan backtracked and said that he could actually maintain VFR.

During the conversation, Zobayan continued flying northbound and entered the airspace without approval, violating FAA rules, according to the enforcement report.

An FAA investigator, who was not named in the document, did not recommend remedial training and instead opted to counsel Zobayan in several areas including operating in airspace around large airports, special VFR weather minimums, proper planning and reviewing weather.

“There are no indications that this is a repeated incident and there are no signs that this incident is a trend with Mr. Zobayan or any other (Island Express Helicopter) personnel,” the investigator wrote.

Opinions among pilots and experts are split on the severity of the violation.

Shawn Coyle, a longtime helicopter pilot, said the violation is considered relatively minor.

“I don’t know a single pilot out there who hasn’t violated a rule,” he said. “If that’s the only violation he’s ever had then I would say he’s pretty safe.”

The report comes as investigators continue to try to determine the cause of the deadly chopper crash on Jan. 26, a process that will likely take months. However, investigators have said Zobayan was struggling with poor visibility in the moments before the aircraft slammed into the hillside.

But Zoey Tur, a veteran Los Angeles news chopper pilot, noted that the Hawthorne incident and the Bryant flight involved a case when the pilot found himself struggling with poor weather conditions.

“As a pilot you’re supposed to check the weather conditions along the route of flight,” Tur said.

A representative for Island Express Helicopters could not be reached for comment. An attorney representing the company did not respond to a phone call from a reporter on Friday.

Kurt Deetz, a former pilot for Island Express Helicopters, said navigating around the controlled airspace near LAX would have added only five to 10 minutes to the flight.

He contends the pilot also should have known that LAX rarely allows helicopters to fly under special flight rules in the airspace around the airport. Entering the airspace without approval, he added, can be dangerous because of potential conflicts with commercial jets.

“You can’t request special VFR and then they deny you and you say, ‘Oh wait a minute, actually I’m VFR’,” he said. “That’s not how it works. It shows that perhaps his understanding of special VFR as opposed to VFR was cloudy.”

Zobayan reported the incident to his employer and the FAA. Island Express Helicopters told federal investigators that they conducted additional ground and flight training with Zobayan in response to the situation.

Helicopter pilots and aviation experts say less-than-ideal weather is not uncommon for experienced pilots, but flying when visibility is decreasing poses an extreme danger.

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(Staff writers Richard Winton and Kim Christensen contributed to this report)

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©2020 Los Angeles Times

Oahu had hottest year on record in 2019, officials say

HONOLULU (AP) — Oahu experienced its hottest year on record in 2019, according to federal officials and municipal authorities.

© Perspectives/Getty Images

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the island reached its highest temperatures last year and the National Weather Service said 273 daily temperature records were tied or broken across the state,Hawaii Public Radio reported Thursday.

A separate study by the City and County of Honolulu also found the state experienced its hottest recorded day last year.

The city's Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency performed the first Community Heat Assessment Aug. 31.

The study found the maximum heat index in several Oahu communities was more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 Celsius), with Waimalu Plaza Shopping Center recording the highest temperature at 107.3 (41.8 Celsius).

“By all indications, that's the new normal," said Josh Stanbro, Honolulu's chief resilience officer. "So that's why we have to take action immediately to try to reverse that trend. We have to completely slam on the brakes in terms of burning carbon fuels for our energy source.”

Mayor Kirk Caldwell said Wednesday that increasing the city's tree canopy is expected to help cool communities.

City officials advised residents to protect themselves from high temperatures, especially children and the elderly.

Honolulu Emergency Services Director Jim Howe urged residents to not leave children or pets in locked cars on hot days and advised surfers and stand-up paddle boarders to drink a liter of water before heading onto the water.

"The time you need to be most prepared is between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.," Howe said. “Every one of our lifeguards here knows that when you're out at the beach, the first place you go is you go for the shade. So you want to stay in the shade and you want to stay well-hydrated.”

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