Beak Deformity Means Starvation For Birds, Puzzle For Cash-Strapped Scientists Investigating Cases

[hatrack]

In his back yard in Fremont, Nikos Anton spotted a house sparrow that seemed to be toting a twig in its beak. But when he looked a little closer, Anton saw the "stick" was actually the grotesquely misshapen and overgrown top half of the bird's beak. "Look at that!" he said, pointing to his pictures of the bird. "It's like an elephant trunk. ... It's a very odd thing happening here in Seattle."

EDIT

But it's not just here. This "long-billed syndrome" has been recorded in about 160 birds by a Skagit County researcher, mostly in Western Washington and southern British Columbia and mostly since 2000. It's also documented in more than 2,100 birds in Alaska, where the phenomenon seems to have started affecting lots of birds in the early 1990s. Researchers say the weird beaks appear to be concentrated in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, although reports are coming in from farther south -- from Southern California in one case earlier this month.

EDIT

When affected birds are brought into wildlife-rehabilitation centers, their feathers often are dirty and matted, because a misshapen beak inhibits preening. For the same reason, they often are infested with feather lice. And sometimes they're starving. Birds need to eat a lot every day, and they use their beaks much as we would use our hands. So what rehab centers are often left with is a dirty, cold, hungry and miserable bird. Many die.

"Who knows how many have died out in the field?" Anderson said. When Anderson first noticed long-billed birds in Western Washington in the late 1990s, the deformities were more pronounced, he said. Now, it looks like more birds are affected, but not quite as badly. Most affected birds in Western Washington are red-tailed hawks. Second on the list are crows. Others include the sparrow in Fremont, black-capped chickadees, Steller's jays, northern flickers and a raven. Also involved are a variety of songbirds, including woodpeckers, wrens and seabirds, including gulls and one common murre.





EDIT

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/357096_beaks31.html

[gulfcoastliberal]

1. Wow, that's really disturbing.

Wonder which of the 1,000s of unregulated chemicals we dump into the environment is causing it?

[Usrename]

2. Chernobyl

:scared: