Subject: FW: Lake Erie waterfowl, loon deaths from botulism
Date: Nov 19 14:00:50 2001
From: Li, Kevin - Kevin.Li at METROKC.GOV




>Waterfowl, including record number of loons, die of
>botulism in Lake Erie
>
>By Associated Press, 11/18/2001 15:11
>
>BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) Thousands of waterfowl, including a record number of
>loons, are being
>killed by botulism in Lake Erie.
>
>Last week alone, wildlife officials collected 139 dead birds, including 92

>common loons, the Buffalo News reported Sunday.
>
>''In my 30 years in this job, we only got 130 loons,'' said Ward Stone,
>the pathologist who is
>examining the dead birds at the state Department of Environmental
>Conservation lab in Albany.
>
>''If we got three to five a year, we were doing well. Here, we're getting
>the numbers we collected in a 30-year period in a day or two,'' Stone
said.
>
>Officials estimated that last year, the first year Type E botulism was
>found in any Great Lake in 30 years, between 5,400 and 6,500 water birds
>died along New York's Lake Erie shore.
>
>Stone believes that number has already been exceeded this year.
>
>In August, the DEC announced it had found Type E botulism in freshwater
>drum, or sheephead, and in gulls collected from the lake. Since then, it
>has been found in thousands of other fish and birds -- including
>smallmouth bass, round gobies, great black-backed gulls, ring-billed
>gulls, herring gulls, cormorants and a young bald eagle.
>
>Type E botulism most often affects fish-eating birds, causing paralysis
>that often leads to death. It can be harmful and even fatal to humans and
>other mammals if they consume raw or undercooked birds or animal flesh
>that has been poisoned with the toxin.
>
>The source of the botulism remains uncertain, though scientists agree its
>spread is associated with the growing populations of two nonnative species

>zebra mussels and the round goby. The latter is a slow-moving fish that is

>probably infecting the birds that catch it.
>
>A mainstay of the goby's diet is the zebra mussel.

FW by
Kevin Li
Seattle, WA
e-mail: kevin.li at metrokc.gov