{"id":801813,"date":"2026-07-14T18:07:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T18:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/801813\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T18:07:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T18:07:12","slug":"federal-researchers-using-driftwood-to-study-and-track-seabird-deaths-off-n-s-coast-halifax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/801813\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal researchers using driftwood to study and track seabird deaths off N.S. coast – Halifax"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\tBy Devin Stevens<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Canadian Press\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tPosted July 14, 2026 12:25 pm\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t1 min read\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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Federal researchers want to know where dead seabirds off the coast of Nova Scotia are most likely to wash up, and they\u2019re using a low-tech solution to find out: driftwood.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Environment and Climate Change Canada has dropped about 600 wooden blocks in the waters between Halifax and Sable Island and off the north coast of Cape Breton.<\/p>\n

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Painted bright orange and affixed with contact information, the blocks are essentially standing in for bird carcasses and a few of them have GPS trackers.<\/p>\n

Researchers are asking birders and beachcombers who find them to call with the date and location.<\/p>\n

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They will use data about where the blocks ended up to build computerized tools helping to predict where in the ocean bird die-offs are happening when their bodies wash ashore.<\/p>\n

That will help officials respond to outbreaks of disease such as avian flu, or to man-made problems, such as oil spills.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Devin Stevens The Canadian Press Posted July 14, 2026 12:25 pm 1 min read Descrease article font…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,295,219189,66,323],"class_list":["post-801813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-environment-and-climate-change-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}