Officials Investigate Deaths of Sea Birds

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Officials Investigate Deaths of Sea Birds 1 hour, 12

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http://news./s/ap/20050704/ap_on_sc/sea_birds

 

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Wildlife officials are trying to

determine what is killing hundreds of sea birds that

have washed ashore in Virginia Beach and other

locations along the Atlantic coast in the past several

weeks.

 

Most of the birds are greater shearwaters, which are

now migrating north from their breeding grounds in the

South Atlantic.

 

Since June 12, more than 500 dead sea birds have been

reported from Maryland to Florida, said Emi Saito, a

wildlife disease specialist with the U.S.

Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in

Madison, Wis.

 

" It's unusual to see so many, " Saito said.

 

Wildlife pathologists are examining the birds for

exposure to toxins, pollutants and infections, she

said.

 

Staffers at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge in

Virginia Beach recently found about a dozen dead

greater shearwaters on the beach, said Dorie Stolley,

a federal wildlife biologist at the refuge.

 

Similar reports have come from the Outer Banks of

North Carolina, as well as Myrtle Beach and Hilton

Head in South Carolina.

 

Almost 200 birds have washed up in South Carolina,

said Diane Duncan, an ecologist with the U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service in Charleston, S.C. " In 20 years

here, I have never seen this kind of mortality event, "

Duncan said. " It certainly is a concern to us, and

we'd like to know the cause. "

 

Tests on two of the birds ruled out toxins found in

red tide, a type of algal bloom that biologists

initially suspected as a culprit, Duncan said.

 

Will Post, an ornithologist and curator at The

Charleston Museum, said he dissected six greater

shearwaters that had washed up alive, unable to fly,

and later died. The birds' stomachs were empty, but

they had varying levels of fat reserves, suggesting

they did not die of starvation, he said.

 

The greater shearwaters are common birds that resemble

gulls in appearance and size, with brown to gray heads

and white undersides, webbed feet and dark, tube-like

bills.

 

They typically stay far offshore, where they feed on

small fish and squid.

 

Shearwaters fly nearly 5,000 miles during their annual

migrations to and from nesting grounds on Tristan da

Cunha, a chain of volcanic islands in the South

Atlantic, Post said. The cold-water birds breed in

April and May and then fly to their summer grounds off

New England and points north, he said.