THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 4, 1994 TAG: 9407040029
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DEBBIE MESSINA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
A highly contagious scourge, known as the duck plague, has killed up to 1,000 ducks in the city in the past several months.
Carcasses of diseased birds, primarily Muscovy and Peking ducks, have turned up around man-made lakes, retention ponds and drainage canals in the city. The condition, which only affects waterfowl and poses no health hazards for humans, is fatal.
The plague is a virus called Duck Viral Enteritis, or DVE. It can devastate a whole flock of waterfowl within 24 to 72 hours.
``It is the first evidence of a very large and chronic problem that will only get worse,'' said Glen Askins, wildlife biologist for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. ``It has the capability of becoming a major disease outbreak that could annihilate all waterfowl in an area.''
Askins estimates that between 500 and 1,000 ducks have died from the disease since March. Exact numbers are not available because not all the ducks have been autopsied.
The number of deaths that can be attributed to the plague is starting to dwindle now that the nesting season is over. Wildlife officials predict deaths throughout the year, but they will increase greatly during the spring nesting season.
The disease may have affected local ducks last year too, but the state only recently confirmed its presence.
The duck plague should not be confused with botulism, a type of poisoning that kills ducks in the summer, or avian cholera, a bacterial disease that claimed 25,000 to 30,000 birds last winter in Maryland and Virginia around the Chesapeake Bay.
The plague is a stress-related virus, Askins said. It appears when ducks are stressed from migration, nesting or competition for feeding.
One of the greatest contributors to the onset of the disease is the feeding of ducks by humans.
While residents think they are doing a good deed by throwing the birds food, like bread and popcorn, they actually are causing the birds to congregate in large numbers. And when there are large gatherings of ducks, they become stressed from competing for food.
``When people feed these birds, they think that this is what they're supposed to do,'' Askins said. ``But the reality is that they're killing them.''
Another big contributor is the release of domestic ducks into the wild. Often, families who tire of Muscovy and Peking ducks that were purchased as pets set them free on the multitude of waterways in the city.
These ducks are not native to the area, they overload the duck population, and they can be carriers of the disease, which means they introduce it into healthy populations.
``It's a dumping area for birds, birds that are not a part of our natural ecosystem,'' Askins said. ``These things are bad news period.''
DVE is in the herpes family of viruses. It can lay dormant in a duck for its entire life, or it can become active under stress. Once it becomes active, it can be spread through the duck's feces, which contaminates the soil.
Wildlife officials fear the disease will spread from domestic ducks, where it is now concentrated, into the wild population.
``We've got to be taking a hard line to get the message across to the public that they are putting thousands of birds at risk with their activities,'' Askins said. ``It can spread from one bird to 50 birds to 1,000 birds overnight.''
The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries would like to see the city or at least homeowners associations prohibit the feeding of ducks and the release of domestic ducks.
Now, the annual duck die-off from botulism is beginning. Botulinus bacteria tend to grow in the summer as the water becomes warm and stagnant.
Each year in the city, dozens of ducks die after ingesting the bacteria while feeding in city waters.
``This happens all too frequently, and there's nothing we can so about it,'' said Skip Scanlon, director of environmental health services for the city health department. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by CHARLIE MEADS, Staff
A mallard duck stands by a Kempsville pond. A virus has killed 500
to 1,000 ducks in the city since March.
KEYWORDS: DUCK DISEASE by CNB