Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 27, 1994 TAG: 9402270082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Hopefully, we can get the birds before the tides start taking them out of the bay and onto the oceanside," said Gary Costanzo, a waterfowl biologist with the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Seven teams of game department workers searched the western bay front from the Potomac River to Virginia Beach, while five teams, including some employees of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, combed the Eastern Shore beaches to remove the dead birds and stem the epidemic's spread, Costanzo said.
The disease was first reported a week ago in Maryland. It reached Virginia waters by Wednesday, when 20 carcasses were found near the mouth of the Potomac River. By Friday, dead ducks had washed ashore at Fort Story in Virginia Beach. On Saturday, crews found 275 dead birds along the bay, Costanzo said.
Avian cholera is caused by a bacteria that spreads rapidly through flocks, killing birds in as little as six to 12 hours. The bacteria spreads through water tainted by the nasal discharges and feces of infected birds. The last time cholera hit the Chesapeake Bay, in 1978, it killed an estimated 100,000 ducks.
Glen Askins, the game department's regional waterfowl manager, said the epidemic will get worse. In the Maryland portion of the bay, the death toll is already in the thousands, he said.
"We just expect this wave to increase over the next five to 10 days," Askins said.
The victims of the epidemic so far are mainly oldsquaw and scoters, two species of sea ducks that keep to deep water offshore and are abundant in the bay this winter.
But at least a half-dozen other species of aquatic birds have been killed, including small numbers of canvasback and bufflehead ducks, loons and several gulls.
The bay is a major wintering ground for ducks, geese and swans, which breed, in some cases, as many as 4,000 miles away in arctic Alaska and Canada. In recent years, the average winter count of ducks, geese and swans on the bay is more than 600,000. The Fish and Wildlife Service expanded its count this year to include sea ducks and found 400,000.
No controls exist for avian cholera. All game officials can do, Askins said, is limit its spread by removing and destroying carcasses when they are found.
Askins said people should not remove or touch dead waterfowl found on the bay shore.
The state's cleanup crews wear protective clothing and disinfect their equipment to minimize the spread of bacteria from the birds they collect. The dead birds are bagged in plastic sacks and burned in an incinerator in Southampton County. The remains are buried to prevent scavengers from spreading the bacteria.
Askins also asked anyone feeding waterfowl to stop immediately in an effort to break up concentrations of fowl, which are particularly susceptible to cholera.
The cleanup of dead birds is expected to take weeks, Askins said.
by CNB