FILE: A common murre takes to the water at Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz, Calif.

The number of common murres washing ashore in critical condition has alarmed experts. These charcoal-and-white seabirds rarely come to land. 

International Bird Rescue has taken in 162 of the penguin look-alikes from Northern California beaches this year, with a notable spike since August. Many are starving.

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A decade ago, biologists documented millions of these seabirds dying during a long period of high ocean temperatures. Now, California biologists are still investigating the deaths, but they worry it could be the start of a similar scenario with the ongoing marine heat wave — and El Niño on the way. 

“The bleak conditions early in the year likely took a toll on the seabirds that survived that period and now they have less than ideal conditions, which are only going to get worse as El Niño progresses,” Tammy Russell, a marine ornithologist for Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, wrote to SFGATE. “I fear that these back-to-back warm periods are too much for many of these species to take;........

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