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http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-dead-birds,0,2705788.story
Botulism Suspected in Mich. Bird Deaths
<DL class=byline>By Associated Press <DD>4:51 PM EDT, November 2, 2007 </DD></DL><NOSCRIPT>
</NOSCRIPT>
ELK RAPIDS, Mich. - Dead birds are washing ashore in Antrim County, and environmental scientists suspect botulism associated with invasive mussels is to blame.
Beachgoers recently have spotted dozens of loon and grebe carcasses littering beaches along the eastern shore of Grand Traverse Bay. The disease has killed thousands of birds in the Great Lakes region in recent years.
"I walk on the beach every day, and I've seen some dead birds," Sherri DeCamp, who lives on the bay north of Elk Rapids, told the Traverse City Record-Eagle for a story Friday. "I would guess we see four or five each day, new ones."
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<!-- END rail -->Nearly 3,000 gulls, grebes and red-breasted mergansers turned up on beaches along a 12-mile stretch of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in November 2006. They died from type E botulism, a neuromuscular disease caused by bacteria.
The birds had eaten fish that carried the toxin, biologists said.
More than 52,000 bird deaths around the Great Lakes have been attributed to the same botulism strain since 2002 in addition to the Sleeping Bear Dunes birds, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources collected 20 bird carcasses this week from the beach a couple of miles north of Elk Rapids. They will be tested for botulism, said Tom Cooley, a biologist with the DNR's wildlife disease laboratory.
Scientists believe zebra and quagga mussels, which invaded the Great Lakes in the 1980s, may filter the bacteria and pass it up the food chain to fish such as the round goby, which in turn are prey for aquatic birds.
"It's an easy way for the birds to be exposed to the bacteria," Cooley said.
* __
Information from: Traverse City Record-Eagle, http://www.record-eagle.com
Botulism Suspected in Mich. Bird Deaths
<DL class=byline>By Associated Press <DD>4:51 PM EDT, November 2, 2007 </DD></DL><NOSCRIPT>
ELK RAPIDS, Mich. - Dead birds are washing ashore in Antrim County, and environmental scientists suspect botulism associated with invasive mussels is to blame.
Beachgoers recently have spotted dozens of loon and grebe carcasses littering beaches along the eastern shore of Grand Traverse Bay. The disease has killed thousands of birds in the Great Lakes region in recent years.
"I walk on the beach every day, and I've seen some dead birds," Sherri DeCamp, who lives on the bay north of Elk Rapids, told the Traverse City Record-Eagle for a story Friday. "I would guess we see four or five each day, new ones."
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<!-- END topix links -->
<!-- END rail -->Nearly 3,000 gulls, grebes and red-breasted mergansers turned up on beaches along a 12-mile stretch of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in November 2006. They died from type E botulism, a neuromuscular disease caused by bacteria.
The birds had eaten fish that carried the toxin, biologists said.
More than 52,000 bird deaths around the Great Lakes have been attributed to the same botulism strain since 2002 in addition to the Sleeping Bear Dunes birds, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources collected 20 bird carcasses this week from the beach a couple of miles north of Elk Rapids. They will be tested for botulism, said Tom Cooley, a biologist with the DNR's wildlife disease laboratory.
Scientists believe zebra and quagga mussels, which invaded the Great Lakes in the 1980s, may filter the bacteria and pass it up the food chain to fish such as the round goby, which in turn are prey for aquatic birds.
"It's an easy way for the birds to be exposed to the bacteria," Cooley said.
* __
Information from: Traverse City Record-Eagle, http://www.record-eagle.com
