Have I Been Living Under a Rock?

This blog is meant to be an uplifting place where you can get away from the troubles of the world. However, the other day, I found something out that made me feel like I have been living under a rock, and I felt like I needed to share what I learned.

Tuesday, I was eating breakfast. As I am prone to do, I went to youtube looking for an animal documentary to watch while I ate.

There wasn't a specific type of animal I wanted to learn about, so I typed in "Animal documentary" to see what popped up. The first video at the top was a video called "Unexplained Mass Animal Deaths." I thought, "Hmm, that sounds interesting," so I watched it.

Here is the video. You don't have to watch it, but I thought I'd link it just in case you were interested.

Evidently, in 2011, we had a veritable flood of mass animal deaths. Animals have been dying off by the thousands, and in many occasions there has been no explanation. In this particular video they analyze four of those events and provide an explanation as to why they might have occurred. In one case, thousands of red-winged black birds were found dead all over one town in Arkansas. In just a couple days time, thousand of fish were also found dead in a river just a few miles north. It was a fascinating, if somewhat horrifying documentary.

"That's interesting," I thought, "I don't remember hearing about this." So I looked it up some more. Evidently, these deaths are happening in increasing numbers. These deaths usually seem to be tied to the sea, as most of the mass deaths have either been fish, marine animals, or birds that typically hang around water.

There is actually a google maps map that is dedicated to just showing areas where mass animal deaths have occurred just in 2011. Here is a link if you are interested. Mass Animal Death Google Map Link

And evidently, those deaths have just been increasing. Here is a list that someone compiled just from 2014. Yes, that means in the last two months. The list is at the bottom of the page. The person who compiled it has also done a list from 2011-2013. (I don't know anything else about the person who compiled this list, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend looking at their other links. Unless you want to.) Link Here. Here are just a few examples from February of this year that I copied and pasted if you don't want to click on the link.

5th February 2014 - 70 TONS of fish have died in Lake Sebu in South Cotabato, Philippines. Link
5th February 2014 - 12 dead Albatross found on Ripiro Beach, 'never seen anything like it' in New Zealand. Link
5th February 2014 - Hundreds of fish found dead in Vasse Estuary, Australia. Link
5th February 2014 - 2.4 MILLION+ Chickens and Ducks killed due to outbreak of Avian flu in South Korea. Link
5th February 2014 - Hundreds of fish found dead in Bashan Park River in Singapore. Link
4th February 2014 - 1,122+ Turtles wash ashore dead during January on beaches in Andhra Pradesh, India. Link
4th February 2014 - 400+ dolphins wash up dead during January on beaches in Northern Peru. Link
3rd February 2014 - Millions of Sea stars still dying off on west coast of America. Link
2nd February 2014 - Thousands of fish found dead in a river in Banyumas, Indonesia. Link
Did everyone else know about this? Why don't I remember hearing about it?

As I looked into this, I find out that other strange things have been occurring. The natural disasters have been kind of out-of-control as well. 

I'm going to be honest, I hate watching or listening to the news anymore. It's super negative and sometimes downright depressing. There is rarely anything hopeful or inspiring about it. However, this event reminded me that as much as I hate the news, it is still important to stay informed.

That's not gravel, that's fish

You can draw your own conclusions about these mass die-offs. For me personally, it has religious significance, but I'm not denying there is probably a scientific reason for it.

I'm not writing this post to depress you or scare you, though I did find myself a bit disturbed after finding this out. Instead, I writing this as a warning to myself. What else am I missing? What other events have been occurring while I've been purposefully sheltering myself?

Do I think these are signs that Christ is coming?

Yes.

Does that scare me?

No. That brings me hope. No matter how bad things get or what tragedies are befalling our planet, if we are doing our best to have faith in our Savior and follow his commandments, we are going to be okay. Bad things are still going to happen, but we can find peace in this turbulent world. There are a lot of terrible things happening now, but there is always hope.

Often, there are also things we can do to help those around us. Being good friends and neighbors can help us to connect to the world around us. Maybe we can't do anything about the events world-wide, but we can do our best to make our community a better and safer place. We are not in this alone. We are surrounded by our brothers and sisters, and we are meant to face the coming times together.

Take courage. "Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them." (2 Kings 6:16)