Tweet
Source: http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pb...335/-1/NEWSMAP
Virus blamed for eider duck deaths
By Doug Fraser
dfraser@capecodonline.com
March 10, 2012
WELLFLEET ? A virus is not the kind of thing to have named after your town, but for the past six years scientists have focused on finding out why common eider ducks have been dying by the hundreds, sometimes thousands, in the fall along the shore of Wellfleet Bay.
Veterinarians at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine led the investigation, along with the University of Georgia-based Southeast Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study and the National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin.
"It's pretty clear, between what the National Wildlife lab found and from the Southeast Cooperative, that there is a new virus found in eiders in Wellfleet that hasn't been detected before," said Sarah Courchesne, project director for the Seabird Ecological Assessment Network at Tufts veterinary school...
...Loosely related to the flu virus, it attacks the liver and gallbladders and seems to work very fast. Eider ducks collected from these mass die-offs appear healthy. They are not emaciated from a long illness in which they can't feed...
...So far, Wellfleet Bay is the only place in the world known to harbor this virus, although the scientists believe it is related to an equally mysterious Quarjavirus family that is distributed around the world. Ticks spread the diseases in colonies of nesting birds...
Virus blamed for eider duck deaths
By Doug Fraser
dfraser@capecodonline.com
March 10, 2012
WELLFLEET ? A virus is not the kind of thing to have named after your town, but for the past six years scientists have focused on finding out why common eider ducks have been dying by the hundreds, sometimes thousands, in the fall along the shore of Wellfleet Bay.
Veterinarians at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine led the investigation, along with the University of Georgia-based Southeast Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study and the National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin.
"It's pretty clear, between what the National Wildlife lab found and from the Southeast Cooperative, that there is a new virus found in eiders in Wellfleet that hasn't been detected before," said Sarah Courchesne, project director for the Seabird Ecological Assessment Network at Tufts veterinary school...
...Loosely related to the flu virus, it attacks the liver and gallbladders and seems to work very fast. Eider ducks collected from these mass die-offs appear healthy. They are not emaciated from a long illness in which they can't feed...
...So far, Wellfleet Bay is the only place in the world known to harbor this virus, although the scientists believe it is related to an equally mysterious Quarjavirus family that is distributed around the world. Ticks spread the diseases in colonies of nesting birds...
Comment