"Large-Scale Die-Off of Small Seabird Along Sonoma Coast"

"Scientists up and down the West Coast are monitoring what appears to be a large-scale die-off of young Cassin’s auklets, small seabirds whose breeding grounds include a colony in the Farallon Islands west of San Francisco.

Emaciated, white-bellied birds have been washing ashore in Sonoma County and along a broad swath of California coastline since early November after a period of ocean warming in the Farallones region and disappearance of the tiny krill that provide their main source of food, researchers say.

Scientists are still collecting data, but the largest concentration of dead birds appears to be in northern Oregon, according to monitors in the Pacific Northwest. Birds have been washing up in Washington, as well."

Mary Callahan reports for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat November 23, 2014.