More dead sea birds on Atlantic coast – 07/08/2005

  • October 30, 2013 at 1:12 am #814
    Mike
    Keymaster

    Hundreds of birds found dead on coast
    July 5, 2005

    http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20050705-120542-1879r.htm

    VIRGINIA BEACH (AP) — Wildlife officials are trying to determine
    what is killing hundreds of sea birds that have washed ashore in
    Virginia Beach and other locations along the Atlantic coast in the
    past several weeks.

    Most of the birds are greater shearwaters, which are migrating
    north from their breeding grounds in the South Atlantic.

    Since June 12, more than 500 dead sea birds have been reported
    from Maryland to Florida, said Emi Saito, a wildlife disease
    specialist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health
    Center in Madison, Wis.

    “It’s unusual to see so many,” she said.
    Wildlife pathologists are examining the birds for exposure to
    toxins, pollutants and infections, Miss Saito said.

    Staffers at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia Beach
    have found about a dozen dead greater shearwaters on the beach, said
    Dorie Stolley, a federal wildlife biologist at the refuge.

    Similar reports have come from the Outer Banks of North Carolina
    and from Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head in South Carolina.

    Almost 200 birds have washed up in South Carolina, said Diane
    Duncan, an ecologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in
    Charleston, S.C.

    “In 20 years here, I have never seen this kind of mortality
    event,” Miss Duncan said. “It certainly is a concern to us, and we’d
    like to know the cause.”

    Tests on two of the birds ruled out toxins found in red tide, a
    type of algal bloom that biologists initially suspected as a culprit,
    she said.

    Will Post, an ornithologist and curator at the Charleston Museum,
    said he dissected six greater shearwaters that died after washing up
    alive and unable to fly. The birds’ stomachs were empty, but they had
    varying levels of fat reserves, suggesting they did not die of
    starvation, he said.

    A Maryland Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman yesterday
    could not confirm that the dead birds have been found in the state.

    The greater shearwaters are common birds that resemble gulls in
    appearance and size, with brown to gray heads and white undersides,
    webbed feet and dark, tubelike bills.

    They typically stay far offshore, where they feed on small fish
    and squid.

    Shearwaters fly nearly 5,000 miles during their annual migrations
    to and from nesting grounds on Tristan da Cunha, a chain of volcanic
    islands in the South Atlantic, Mr. Post said.

    The cold-water birds breed in April and May, then fly to their
    summer grounds off New England and points north, he said.

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