Hi Tweeters, Jim, Mary and Irene,

There is also an interesting account of the die-off by Brian Scott, the
man who actually witnessed the deaths at
www.yahoogroups.com/group/bcvanbirds (message number 1707). He reported
the deaths to Laurie Wilson at the Canadian Wildlife Service
(laurie.wilson at ec.gc.ca) who had the birds autopsied, revealing
chocolate as the cause of the deaths. The theory according to Laurie is
that one of the local chocolate manufacturers dumped a big load of
chocolate at the landfill where it was ingested by gulls.

Kyle Elliott
Langley BC

(From Brian Scott on bcvanbirds):

"Yesterday, I went to Burns Drive at Hwy99 and 10 to check out the
gull roosts. I wasn't there but a few minutes when another
gull watcher approached to comment on the number of dead gulls
in the field. He said that he had witnessed gulls litterally
falling dead from the sky. We counted about 17 fresh dead gulls in our
area. Bald eagles were coming in to feed on the carcases.

Assuming the deaths were being caused by some sort of toxin, I
phoned the CWS and OWL. I was worried about any poisons moving up the
food chain.

While waiting for the CWS folks, I kept watch . At one point there
were 20 BAEA feeding on the dead gulls. A flock of about 500 gulls
rested very close to my truck and showed now obvious signs of
physical stress other than a couple that constantly
bobbed their heads up and down as if having trouble with swallowing or keeping
air passages clear. At one point the flock flushed and when about 75 feet
in the air four plummetted to the ground dead. One crashed about five
feet from my truck. It was like a silent gunner was blasting them
from the sky. Very surreal indeed.

I examined the third year GWGU by my truck. It had belly flopped
into the ground with it's wings spread, lifted it's head straight up
gasping, and quickly died. There was a brown paste being regurgitated
and filling it's open beak.

When the ladies from CWS arrived, they said they would pick up any
carcases they could find and have them tested. They will let me know
what they find.

While waiting, I had watched for any sign of stress in the eagles
feeding on the dead gulls and saw nothing unusual. My theory is that
the gulls have ingested something that has caused some sort of reflux
action, that the birds can deal with while roosting, but when scared
into flight the material is forced into the back of their throats and
they sufficate in mid air. But that's just this amateur's take on it.
I'll let you know what develops." --Brian Scott

Save rainforest acres at rainforest.care2.com (for free!)

On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Jim & Mary Ronback wrote:

> 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
>