Dead Birds and the Weather

Scientists are discovering more and more dead birds alongside the beaches of California coast (Dead Birds Do Tell Tales). They think this could only mean that the drastic pattern changes in the weather have severely disrupted the ecosystem.

“Something big is going on out there,” said Julia Parrish, an associate professor in the School of Aquatic Fisheries and Sciences at the University of Washington. “I’m left with no obvious smoking gun, but birds are a good signal because they feed high up on the food chain.”
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“In 50 years, this has never happened,” said Bill Peterson, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Newport, Oregon. “If this continues, we will have a food chain that is basically impoverished from the very lowest levels.”

This could be a pattern that takes place every __ (fill in the blank) years which scientists have overlooked. OR this is something so screwed up that we don’t even realize the severity of it. But of course, we can always count on George W. Bush’s scientists to give a direct and comprehensive answer.