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Thousands of ducks dying
14/12/2006 13:10 - (SA)
Salmon - Officials scrambled on
Wednesday to determine what has caused the deaths of thousands
of mallard ducks in south-central Idaho near the Utah border.
Although wildlife experts are downplaying any links to bird
flu, they have sent samples to government labs to test for the
deadly H5N1 flu strain, among other pathogens.
Officials with the federal Bureau of Homeland Security have
been also called in to help with the probe.
"We think the possibility of avian flu is very remote but
we're not ruling anything out at this point in time," said Dave
Parish, regional supervisor for the Idaho Department of Fish
and Game. "We want to make sure all the bases are covered."
Wildlife officials are calling the massive die-off
alarming, with the number of dead mallards rising from 1 000 on Tuesday to more than 2 000 by Wednesday afternoon. "We've never seen anything like this - ever," Parrish said.
A hunter alerted state conservation officials after finding
a handful of dead ducks along a creek near Burley on Friday.
By Wednesday, dead and dying birds clogged sections of the
stream and littered its banks. Officials have posted signs
warning hunters and others not to touch or eat the birds until
a cause of death has been identified.
Preliminary findings by state veterinarians suggest the
mallards succumbed to a bacterial infection, officials said.
They said it was unclear why a similar outbreak had never
before occurred in Idaho.
On Wednesday, officials outfitted with protective gear were
gathering hundreds of mallard carcasses. Wildlife managers said
the birds will be incinerated.
The only mallard die-off roughly equivalent in recent years
happened in Waterloo, Iowa in 2005, when 500 ducks died from a
fungus they contracted by eating mouldy grain, according to a
report by the US Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health
Centre.
- Reuters
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