Hi Tweets,

Here's more on that cormorant die off in the Salton Sea. You'd think, since
this is a reoccuring disease in this area, that they would try and find out
why, wouldn't you?

Peggi
>
>
>NEWCASTLE DISEASE, CORMORANTS - USA (CALIFORNIA)
>************************************************
>
>Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 13:58:34 -0800
>From: varmint at well.com (Hacsi Horvath)
>
>A Federal laboratory has isolated Newcastle disease virus as the cause of
>recent deaths [since early May, 1997] in a nesting colony of double-crested
>cormorants in southern California's Salton Sea [an inland salt lake], but
>there are no indications yet what type of Newcastle disease, or how severe,
>it may be, agencies of the U.S. Department of the Interior announced today.
>
>The USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, today
>reported that it had detected the virus in cormorant samples taken from the
>inland sea during a recent die-off that has killed about 1,600 of the black
>waterbirds to date. The laboratory cautioned that the particular strain of
>Newcastle virus in this outbreak has yet to be identified, so it is unknown
>at this time what risk its appearance in the Salton Sea poses to other birds
>or to domestic poultry.
>
>Identification of the virus in cormorants occurs as wildlife biologists
>contend with other maladies affecting two other species of birds in sections
>of the remote 380-square-mile sea, which is the last stop in the United
>States for many species of birds migrating along the Pacific Flyway. Small
>numbers of deaths in brown and white pelicans, attributed to avian botulism,
>have been reported over the past 2 months, as well as undiagnosed deaths in
>eared grebes, another species of waterbird. Last year, the Salton Sea was
>the site of the largest recorded die-off of pelicans, diagnosed as avian
>botulism, a recurrent disease of birds in the wild.
>
>Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service News Release, June 6, 1997
>http://164.159.11.73/news/9747nr.htm
>
>---
>Hacsi Horvath
>ProMED-mail Special Correspondent
>e-mail: <varmint at well.com>
>http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/7059/homepage.html
>...................................................mhj
>
>--
>Send all items for posting to: promed at usa.healthnet.org (NOT to an
>individual moderator). If you do not give your full name and affiliation,
>it may not be posted. Send commands to subscribe/unsubscribe, get archives,
>help, etc. to: majordomo at usa.healthnet.org. For assistance from a human
>being, send mail to: owner-promed at usa.healthnet.org
>.-
>
>
Ben & Peggi Rodgers
Aptos, CA (near Santa Cruz 122 W, 37 N)
USA
woodduck at cruzio.com


"A bird does not sing because it has an answer,
It sings because it has a song"