Hi, Irene, I'm the newsletter editor of Delta Naturalists, here in Tsawwassen,
BC, and I reported on this problem back in February 2001. I also work at OWL,
so was very interested in the fact that the eagles didn't get poisoned. Here's
what I wrote:

Some disturbing news from the Delta landfill site - there have been a large
number of dead gulls found there, and the cause of the death seems to have been
chocolate! It seems that a large load of chocolate was dumped at the landfill
site (although they have no record of it), and the gulls ate it. The
explanation of why they died is found on the www.vetheart.com site on the web -
it says: Chocolate contains theobromine (a compound similar to caffeine) which
is poisonous to animals. A dose of 50 mg/lb can be fatal to a dog. Milk
chocolate contains 45 mg of theobromine per ounce and unsweetened baking
chocolate contains 400 mg per ounce. Just one ounce of unsweetened baking
chocolate can kill a small dog. Theobromine when ingested by dogs causes
release of epinephrine (adrenaline) which cuases the heart to race and serious
cardiac arrhythmias to develop. Signs of chocolate poisoning in dogs include
vomiting, diarrhea, excessive urination, hyperactivy followed by depression and
coma, seizures, and death. There is NO antidote for this drug. Since a bird has
a much higher metabolism than a dog, and a much smaller body than a dog, we can
safelly say that it would take a much smaller dose for toxic effects and
possibly death to occur. (This might explain wny no eagles were affected - even
though the last count of eagles at the landfill was 220! They don't like
chocolate!)

Hope that satisfies your curiosity,

Cheers, Mary Ronback

Irene Potter wrote:

> Tweets:
>
> If I remember correctly, no too long ago there was a posting on Tweeters
> concerning a die-off of gulls associated with chocolate. Does anyone out
> there have information on this die-off - who posted the information, where
> it happened, what evidence supported the report, etc. If you wish, you can
> e-mail me directly at
> isparrow at ix.netcom.com
> Irene Potter, Tacoma