Excerpts from an article in today's Seattle Time. Author is Lynda
Mapes.

Something is killing seabirds.

For the thrid winter running, seabirds not usually seen in such near-
shore waters have washing up, apparently starved to death, on beaches
in California, Oregon, and Washington.

And for the third year, scientists say the reasons aren't clear. What
they do know is this: The deaths matter.

"Birds around the world a re really good indicators of eco-system
health," said Bob Emmett, a research fisheries biologist for the
National Marine Fisheries SErvice in Newport, Ore. "If the birds
aren't doing well, then the salmon won't do well, and the marine
mammals won't do well."

Researchers for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found 175 dead
auklets and 68 dead puffins in a three-day survey late last month at a
10-mile stretch of the Clatsop Spit at the mouth of the Columbia
River, according to Roy Lowe, projet leader for the Oregon Coast
National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Auklets and puffins also have been
found dead on the beaches in Washington's Long Beach in unusually high
numbers, Lowe said.

The birds were found to have no body fat and empty digestive systems,
Lowe said.

"When I see dead birds floating ashore, it's kind of a bellwether for
what is going on underneath the surface," he added.

But exactly what's going on in theocean is not known, said Julia
parrish, an associate professor of aquatic and fihseries science at
the University of Washington. She said she isn't sure whether it's a
result of a fundamental change in the coastal ecosystem or a smaller
scale shift in the food supply.

"On the one hand the birds are literally screaming at us: 'Something
is changed. Something is different. We are not surviving well.' And
yet there is no obvious smoking gun," Parrish said. "We seem to be in
a period in which the marine enviroment of the Pacific NW is becoming
very variable, like a machine that is a little out of kilter."

Ocean temperatures have, on average, been warm and the food web has
been unproductive during the past three years, said Bill Peterson, an
oceanographer with the National Marine Fisheris SErvice. "The birds
were stressed at the end of their rope," he said.

Still, he said he predicts a turnaround coming in the summer, with
colder water that will kick-start the food chain.

Shifts in ocean productivity are not new, but scientists say they have
been seeing such patterns shift more quickly. Climate change might be
one explanation, but they aren;t sure.

"One of the predictions of global warming is that it will increase
variability," Parrish said. "But these is a lot of inherent
variability, and it is hard to draw the signal out of all that noise."