2000 mallard ducks drop dead in Idaho

[sproutster]

Fish & Game and Homeland Security are all over it.

It started with 10 found dead yesterday, and up to 2k today - more dying.

It's in an area called the magic valley.

I'm kinda freaked.

Not avian flu (tho not completely dismissed)

Bacterial abscesses on bodies and hemmoraging around the heart.

I'm freaked -- It's all about tin foil for me atm.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

1. Damn that Bruce Tinsley!

[SmellsLikeDeanSpirit]

2. it's the BIRD FLU *runs toward underground bunker*

[graywarrior]

3. Uh oh.

I know one nervous duck.

[LizW]

4. Bacterial abscesses?

:faints:

[sproutster]

5. I'm being serious - 24 hour period... The film they just showed

Had duck bodies everywhere.

Stuff that can do that kinda damage overnight is something to pay attention to.

[fishnfla]

6. liver fluke eom

[mod mom]

7. Heres a link I found:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20061213-1029-wst-duckdie-off.html

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Please post a link as soon as you have it.

Some toxins can lead to abcesses as well. Could be ag runoff or a spill; we need more facts, though.

on edit: crossed in the network, thanks for the link.

[eleny]

9. Reuters

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-12-14T062044Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-280249-1.xml&archived=False

[mod mom]

14. Infection from grain treated w pesticides:

Parrish said that the ducks may have contracted a bacterial infection by eating grain treated with pesticides by local cattle farmers. Farming chemicals may also have spilled into the creek, he said.

[MonkeyFunk]

16. I can see them

getting poisoned by pesticides, but not contracting a bacterial infection. Unless some toxin really weakens their immune system.

It's a shame, whatever the cause.

[Mojorabbit]

20. Except only ducks dying

not crows or other birds. That is weird.

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Poor lil duckies

[sproutster]

11. Nother link

http://www.idahostatesman.com/238/story/63640.html

[annabanana]

23. pic from link above:

[ewoden]

12. Avian cholera? see presentations listed

Pasteurella multocida; affects waterfowl, crows, gamebirds, raptors; Gross: septicemia, multifocal necrotizing hepatitis, epicardial hemorrhages, enteritis

[puerco-bellies]

13. Why would threre be pesticides in the cattle feed?

Wouldn't the cattle be affected?

[ewoden]

15. Selenium toxicosis might also be a cause

Selenium is an additive in livestock feeds to promote growth (micro nutrient). Though my money is on Avian cholera, hammers ducks and very quickly, especially if they are crowded into a small area.

[CabalPowered]

17. The Burley area is full of confined animal operations

and farmland. These smaller waterways can have very high concentrations of fertilizers and fecal matter. Our ground water is in terrible shape.

[Cleita]

18. Magic Valley.

Lots of mining I believe in the gold rush days. Seems like a mining hazardous waste leak that hit the waterways that the ducks use. It could be something that has been lying there for several decades that finally got washed into the system.

Idaho doesn't like much government intervention in it's extraction industries so I'm sure there is industrial waste involved somewhere there even though it seems all so pristine.

[chknltl]

19. Could that harsh spate of freezing we went through...

...be a possibility here? (Needed mentioning because that was an abnormality which directly preceded this.)
I look forward to the autopsy results, I hope it is something simple like this. I wonder why this isn't bigger news....

[ewoden]

21. Freezing forces ducks into limited open water spaces

They overnight in those areas. Sick birds excrete in water, area has high runoff of animal operations so high nutrients, crowded conditions, bacterial breeding ground : Avian cholera outbreak is my Fristian diagnosis.

Mine waste? Metals usually don't produce putrescent lesions. Takes an awful lot of something like copper to kill acutely, probably have a fish kill along with it. Pesticides? Organophosphates or carbamates are most likely causes of widespread avian deaths and they are neurotoxins, hence again no putrescent lesions and again if in water these ACHE inhibitors would produce a fish kill.

Here's a site from USGS on avian cholera http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov

[formercia]

22. The thought they might have to run the Cheney gauntlet

Better dead than Lead.