Sounds like Bird Flu Virus in Brunswick, Ga.!

[BB]

Geese Dying in Brunswick Georgia Cause Concern

Recombinomics Commentary
July 15, 2005

"It's something terrible," resident Tammy Bechtold said. "Their heads jerk (and they) can't walk straight. Most are dying in the pond."

At first glance, the gaggle of geese currently roaming the pond look healthy, but so did 16 others before something odd happened. Bechtold was the first person in the Brunswick development to notice the problem when she found two dead geese.

"They had babies, and babies were chirping or crying, wanting their parents," she said.

But it wasn't until the next day when six more geese died -- and seven more the day after -- that she started to pay attention.



The neurological symptoms in the dying geese in Brunswick, Georgia sound much like the dead bar headed geese at Qinghai Lake. Initially the geese in Qinhai were said not to have bird flu, but tests identified H5N1 and all isolates had a PB2 E627K mutation associated with neurological variants of H5N1.

Since Qinghai Lake was at the intersection of the two may migratory bird flyways in Asia, the subsequent migration of the birds away from Qinghai Lake was cause for concerns.

Recently shearwaters were washing up on the east coast from Florida to Maryland and they two had neurological symptoms.

The die-off of geese in Georgia are ominously similar to the Qinghai bar headed goose situation in early May.

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/07150506/Georgia_Geese.html

 

[Fuzzychick]

Here we go folks! HEADS UP FROM NOW ON....

 

[HeliumAvid]

bump

 

[Fuzzychick]

Best all go back to threads concerning bird flu and this....http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Consequences.CanadaSue

This is serious folks....

 

[Albuburbia]

I posted this at Mutter's yesterday. I thought I'd see a few "oh craps" but nobody has commented yet.

This appeared a few days ago at promed, and is only followed up with a short comment. I find this alarming, considering what has been posted. When they talk about the birds having trouble flying, it makes me think of when I read about neurological problems in birds, stumbling and whatnot.

Forgive me, please, if this has already been posted. I looked around first, but didn't see it.
*******************************

http://www.promedmail.org/pls/promed/f?p=2...20050709.1956,Y

Archive Number 20050709.1956
Published Date 09-JUL-2005
Subject PRO/AH/EDR> Undiagnosed deaths, sea birds - USA (VA): RFI


UNDIAGNOSED DEATHS, SEA BIRDS - USA (VIRGINIA): REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
****************************************
A ProMED-mail post
<http://www.isid.org>
ProMED-mail, a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
<http://www.isid.org>

Sponsored in part by Elsevier, publisher of
The International Journal of Infectious Diseases
<http://tinyurl.com/bj3md>

Date: 9 Jul 2005
From: ProMED-mail <promed@promedmail.org>
Source: The Virginian-Pilot, 2 Jul 2005 [edited]
<http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=88671&ran=69850>


Deaths of sea birds have wildlife officials puzzled
-----------------------------------------------
Wildlife officials are investigating the mysterious deaths of hundreds of
sea birds that have washed up on beaches along the Atlantic coast since
mid-June 2005, including south of Sandbridge and on the Outer Banks.

Most of the birds have been greater shearwaters, which are now migrating
north from their breeding grounds in the South Atlantic. The birds, while
fairly common, are rarely seen by beachgoers because they typically stay 30
to 100 miles offshore, where they feed on small fish and squid.

Some of the birds have washed up alive, unable to fly and appearing weak,
and later died. The number of dead birds has alarmed wildlife officials,
who are scrambling to pinpoint a cause.

More than 500 dead sea birds have been reported from Maryland to Florida
since June 12, 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 this week.

Wildlife pathologists are examining the carcasses for exposure to toxins,
pollutants such as heavy metals, and infections that might indicate a
broader environmental concern, she said.

During the past week, staffers at the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge in
Virginia Beach have found about a dozen dead greater shearwaters on the
beach, said Dorie Stolley, a wildlife biologist. Only a few remained in
good enough condition to be examined, and the others were incinerated by
city animal control officers, she said.

Staffers used rubber gloves and took other precautions while collecting the
birds. People are advised not to touch dead birds they find on the beach.

Reports of dead birds also have come from Ocracoke and Hatteras Island on
the Outer Banks.

Diane Duncan, an ecologist with the federal wildlife agency's Ecological
Services Office in Charleston, S.C., said the first reports came from
Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head and several nearby islands. Nearly 200 birds
have washed up since then in South Carolina, Duncan said.

"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 2 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
had dissected 6 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 that they did not die of starvation,
Post said. "They were below normal weight, but that's normal when they're
in migration," he said.

The shearwaters fly nearly 5000 miles during their annual migrations to and
from their 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.

Islanders in the South Atlantic are allowed to harvest about 50 000 of the
young birds a year for food, which is controversial, Post said. There's an
estimated 5 million breeding pairs, he added. The birds resemble gulls in
appearance and size, with brown to gray heads and white undersides. They
have webbed feet and dark, tube-like bills.

Since they spend their lives at sea, Post said, they are able to drink salt
water, excreting excess salt through special glands in their heads.

[Byline: Jon W. Glass<jon.glass@pilotonline.com>]

 

[SouthernGal]

Oh, s*it! (Said from a Georgian).

 

[Fuzzychick]

Oh, s*it! (Said from a Georgian).

That about sums it up nicely....if it's here, they won't tell us...resulting panic from sheeple ill equipped spiritually, emotionally, and otherwise, would be the rationale to keep it quiet...my advice PREPARE!

 

[Dixielee]

That about sums it up nicely....if it's here, they won't tell us...resulting panic from sheeple ill equipped spiritually, emotionally, and otherwise, would be the rationale to keep it quiet...my advice PREPARE!

I think they could post it on all the news sources, and people would still not prepare. Whenever I have mentioned the possibility of a bird flu epidemic, all I get is a deer in the headlights look. People don't want to hear bad news that may affect them. Yes, prepare.

 

[Fuzzychick]

Ya know, I feel like an old taperecorder here...but PREPARE....this news is not good, I'm off to do some research now...another good source sorry mods, but people do need to KNOW how to prepare is curevents.com, the flu threads...I recommend it for all TB2K, those that are interested in taking steps to be ahead of the game...JM2$....my rant out.

 

[JohnGaltfla]

Having been in the container business in my past....and dealt with Evergreen and other Asian container lines, I thought this might be "informative"...

Since 1945, Georgia's ports have served as magnets for international trade and investment, enriching the state's economy to benefit all Georgians. The Georgia Ports Authority is dedicated to providing customers with the most efficient, productive port facilities in the nation, and to creating jobs and business opportunities to benefit more than 8.6 million Georgians. The GPA is committed to maintaining its competitive edge through development of leading-edge technology, marketing and operations to move cargo faster. And, the Authority is working hard to identify what must be done today to sustain growth, performance and security for tomorrow.

Georgia's deepwater ports in Savannah and Brunswick, together with inland barge operations in Bainbridge and Columbus, are Georgia's gateways to the world. They are the critical conduits through which raw materials and finished products flow to and from destinations around the globe.

As a quasi-state agency, a thirteen-member Board of Directors governs the activities of the GPA. The Board is appointed by the Governor, from the state at large, to serve four-year, staggered terms. A Chief Executive Officer, an experienced international transportation professional, implements policy directives, administrative duties and managerial controls.

As one of the state's largest public employers, the GPA directly employs more than 850 people. The GPA, however, is responsible for generating far more employment throughout the state. GPA operations, together with private sector, port-related operations, account for more than 295,006 jobs statewide, billions of dollars in revenue, and income exceeding $10.8 billion annually.

The Port of Savannah, home to the largest single-terminal container facility of its kind on the U.S. East and Gulf coasts, is comprised of two modern, deepwater terminals: Garden City Terminal and Ocean Terminal. Together, these facilities exemplify the GPA's exacting standards of efficiency and productivity. Garden City Terminal is one of the top five container handling facilities in the United States, encompassing more than 1,200 acres and moving millions of tons of containerized cargo annually.

Ocean Terminal, Savannah's dedicated breakbulk and Roll-on / Roll-off facility, covers 208 acres and provides customers with more than 1.3 million square feet of covered, versatile storage.

The Port of Brunswick is comprised of three GPA-owned deepwater terminals, two of which are directly operated by the GPA. The port's well-earned reputation for productivity and efficiency is heightened by its position as one of the fastest growing auto and heavy machinery ports in North America. Today, more than 12 major auto manufacturers, supported by three auto processors, utilize the Colonel's Island Terminal. The terminal is also home to the South Atlantic's fastest growing bulk export / import operation. Agri-products from Georgia and the rich U.S. grain belt, as well as import products, flow smoothly across the Colonel's Island docks.

Brunswick's Mayor's Point Terminal facilitates the export of Georgia's valuable forest products, while Marine Port Terminals, operated by Logistec U.S.A., specializes in the handling of breakbulk and bulk commodities.

Though Georgia's inland river terminals have been adversely impacted by drought, Port Bainbridge and Port Columbus have been re-tooled to serve as low-cost transportation and distribution facilities. These ports are now providing a strategic advantage for commodities moving to and from the region.

Through leadership, a desire to excel and proven success, the Georgia Ports Authority remains steadfast in its resolve to create economic opportunities for the citizens of Georgia and to grow customer business.

From... http://www.gaports.com/index2.html

But don't worry, the CDC would never lie to us.

 

[Fuzzychick]

A little food for thought here from Feb.2005.. FAIR USE FOR EDUCATION APPLIES

Remember folks this is from February...we are in July....



Commentary

Pandemic Avian Influenza Evolution

Recombinomics Commentary
February 21, 2005

>> Nancy Cox is the head of the flu division of the United States Centre for Disease Control.

She says research now shows that bird flu is capable of mutating into a form that can spread from humans to humans.

"We found that for the 2003 virus, the virus had actually changed its receptive binding or its ability to bind to the receptors that are in human cells," she said.

"This shows that the virus can actually change in such a way, or has actually changed in the past in such a way, that might make it more easily transmitted from person to person." <<

The above comments on a human receptor binding capability in H5N1 are similar to earlier reports on H9N2 isolates being able to recognize human receptors. There have been several reports on dual infections involving H9N2 and H5N1 viruses. The reports of H5N1 human infections in 1997 described isolates that were H5N1, yet the genes for the internal proteins involved in the replication of the virus were of H9N2 or H6N1 origin. More recently 2003 H9N2 isolates from Hong Kong had H5N1 internal genes.

Since H9N2 is the most common sub-type in Asia, finding reassortants with H9N2 and H5N1 genes is not surprising. Moreover the genes themselves have changed via recombination. In some cases the genes are half H5N1 and half H9N2.

Avian influenza changes its genes via recombination, so picking up a human receptor binding domain, or part of such a domain, is also not surprising. H5N1 is clearly evolving toward a pandemic virus with a broader host range, as demonstrated by its ability to infect mammals such as wild and domestic cats, as well as lab mice and ferrets. Moreover, it can cause hind leg paralysis in ferrets and mice because its tissue tropism is also expanding.

All of this evolution is done in the absence of isolation of H5N1 avian and human reassortants. The lack of human genes in H5N1 isolates is announced regularly by WHO, as they issue warnings about the expanded host range of H5N1.

The only recently reported avian / human reassortants are those isolated from swine in Korea. These isolates have been actively ignored by the WHO. Reporters are simply told that the WHO is aware of the situation in Korea, but there are no announcements or warnings.

In Korea there are both H9N2 and H1N1 reassortants. The H1N1 human genes come from the virulent human lab virus WSN/33 which has escaped from a lab and infected swine on farms. The human virus has both recombined and reassorted with H9N2 avian isolates found in Korea. Of the 8 genes, these isolates have 7, 5, 4, or 3 human genes. Moreover, the PB2 gene in some isolates is half human and half avian, while the NA gene is a recombinant between two or more Korean avian genes.

Thus avian influenza has been achieving a pandemic potential on several fronts involving H5N1, H9N2 and human H1N1 genes. However, the monitoring or even announcing the existence of such viruses remains scandalous.

 

[Gayla]

It's definitely disturbing and cause for concern, but your title is misleading BB.

I think it should be changed to add the word 'possible' or something similar.

 

[Fuzzychick]

Food for thought....April 2005...they don't see this coming?????

Home > News & Policies





For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 1, 2005

Executive Order: Amendment to E.O. 13295 Relating to Certain Influenza Viruses and Quarantinable Communicable Diseases




By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 361(b) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 264(b)), it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Based upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the Surgeon General, and for the purpose set forth in section 1 of Executive Order 13295 of April 4, 2003, section 1 of such order is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:

"(c) Influenza caused by novel or reemergent influenza viruses that are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic.".

Sec. 2. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, entities, officers, employees or agents, or any other person.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

April 1, 2005

 

[juco]

I posted this at Mutter's yesterday. I thought I'd see a few "oh craps" but nobody has commented yet...............

Albuburbia, I'll be happy to oblige you here.

Oh, Crap.

 

[Fuzzychick]

Had to take care of other business, I'm going back to research mode...alot to think about don't you think?....

 

[rhughe13]

This doesn't look good for birds, now we just gotta keep a watch out for this jumping over to people.

 

[Fuzzychick]

Here's something to give you the warm fuzzies.......
Fair use for education applies...


Pandemic or panmemic?
With remarkable speed, media around the world are picking up on the idea that bird flu could spread to Europe and other regions far from Qinghai and Xingjiang. The story in The Telegraph is old news to us, but evidently not to those who rely on TV and newspapers.

Still, it's encouraging to see this idea spread. If Richard Dawkins's "meme" is an idea that reproduces itself like a gene, then we are seeing a "panmemic" as the implications of avian flu travel the world. As those implications sink in, politicians will feel increased pressure to act to forestall the pandemic.

Like flu itself, the panmemic will come in waves. We are likely near the end of the first wave, something analogous to Spanish flu in the spring of 1918. At least some of the mainstream media have succumbed to the infection, thereby alerting their readers and viewers. The next wave, far more intense, will follow the first clearly documented cases of human-to-human avian flu on a large scale. Fifty or sixty sudden deaths in some Chinese or Vietnamese hospital will focus billions of minds overnight, and perhaps move governments to do something serious.

Such an outbreak will also trigger plenty of opportunist responses, like pneumonia moving into flu-shocked lungs. Our spam will switch from cheap Viagra and Nigerian con games to surefire flu cures. I suspect thousands of lives will be saved if the originators of such scams are promptly identified and jailed for the duration.

Public-health authorities should go on the offensive now, rather than wait for some Chinese press release to scare them into action. Just as H5N1 has various strains, the panmemic should develop strains that trigger severe symptoms in politicians. Better a metaphorical deathbed repentance than a repentance on a real deathbed.


July 09, 2005 at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Death of an orphan
According to Newsday, a 20-year-old youth from a Cambodian orphanage died last Tuesday. Several other orphanage residents are ill with flu-like symptoms. All had reportedly eaten chicken before falling ill. You can read the story here.

July 08, 2005 at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

 

[Fuzzychick]

My all time favorite the WHO page....look around and peruse....

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/pandemic/en/index.html#detect

 

[Phil Ca]

A heads Up for anyone in the Brunswick, Georgia. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center is located here. (FLETC) It has a year around campus and trains thousands of officer and agent each year. If anyone hears of a closing of FLETC without any explanation it may be due to the threat in the first post. I have attended classes there and people come from every state in the country for training. At anyone time there may be several hundrd or a thousand or more in attendance.

 

[CGTech]

AVIAN INFLUENZA, HUMAN - EAST ASIA (101): VIET NAM
**************************************************
A ProMED-mail post
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ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
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Sponsored in part by Elsevier, organizer of
The 1st International Conference for the Journal of Travel Medicine and
Infectious Disease
<http://tinyurl.com/8vv5p>

Date: Fri 15 Jul 2005
From: ProMED-mail <promed@promedmail.org>
Source: Nature, News, Fri 15 Jul 2005 [edited]
<http://www.nature.com/drugdisc/news/articles/436006a.html>


Viet Nam: Conflicting Results Cause Concern
-------------------------------------------
The world last week seemed to edge closer to the brink of a flu pandemic. On 30
Jun 2005, officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that they
recently considered raising the threat level of a global pandemic, from the
current 3 on a 6-point scale, to 4 or even 5.

The scare was triggered a few weeks ago when several research groups visiting
Viet Nam filed preliminary reports that many people with mild cases of
influenza -- and those in contact with them -- were testing positive for avian
H5N1 influenza virus infection. This suggested that there was widespread human-
to-human transmission of the virus.

Subsequent tests have so far failed to confirm this, and WHO spokesman Dick
Thompson is keen to play down the incident. "It was just unpublished
information provided to us in preliminary form that spurred an investigation,"
he says. "We thought about upgrading the alert. We looked at it fast and
strongly, and based on that decided not to upgrade."

But take a closer look, and the picture in Viet Nam is one of confusion rather
than reassurance. The first signs of trouble came in May 2005, with reports of
small clusters of human cases of H5N1 [virus infection], including a rise in
the infection of older people and an increase in milder cases -- all signs
consistent with the possibility that the virus had mutated to achieve improved,
although still inefficient, human-to-human spread (see Nature 435, 390; 2005).

Concern mounted in subsequent weeks as several international groups
investigated the clusters using different methods, including the polymerase
chain reaction (PCR), which amplifies DNA sequences, and Western blots, which
use antibodies to detect proteins. Despite using different tests, each of the
teams reported that: "Substantial proportions" of the hundreds of people it had
tested seemed to be infected with H5N1.

That led the WHO to consider upgrading the pandemic threat level to 4 (small,
localized clusters of human infection) or 5 (large clusters of infection) --
just one step away from a full-blown global pandemic. But first it asked an
international team of experts, including Masato Tashiro, a virologist at the
National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo, to retest many of the
samples and some new ones, using the WHO's own PCR tests.

They found no evidence of clusters of human-to-human transmission. "This is
good news," Tashiro says, relieved that his worst suspicions weren't confirmed.
But it remains unclear why the various groups got different results.

Samples have now been sent to a WHO laboratory in Hong Kong for the last word
in confirmation: antibody neutralization assays. These take time, as they
involve growing large amounts of the virus for analysis, but a firm conclusion
is expected by the end of the month [July 2005]. In the meantime, the WHO is
holding off raising the alarm.

"Because of the consequences of such a change, the WHO is following a cautious
approach," it declared in a statement last week. Pushing the level to 4 for the
first time would mean deploying the international stockpile of antiviral drugs
to try to contain or stamp out the spread, and would probably result in
countries restricting travel to Viet Nam.

But Tashiro remains concerned that he and his colleagues didn't have enough
time to check all of the clinical and epidemiological information associated
with the initial lab samples. Follow-up work is also complicated by the fact
that recovered patients have now returned home, making it hard to track down
people they might have infected. "We still have a big problem collecting enough
good data," he says.

Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Unit at the
Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, says that much of the
uncertainty over the prevalence of H5N1 could be avoided if Viet Nam had better
facilities for testing samples locally. "The international community continues
to suggest that countries ship samples out somewhere else," he says, "while
doing absolutely nothing to invest in enhancing the scientific capacity of the
Vietnamese to respond to the epidemics themselves."

In the meantime, Tashiro adds that even if final tests confirm his negative
results, "the fundamental situation has not changed." Many are concerned that
July and August [2005] will bring a new and bigger wave of influenza cases in
Viet Nam, as happened in 2004 during the hot rainy season. And recent events in
China bode just as ill. Scientists investigating migratory birds infected with
H5N1 avian influenza virus in western China are now warning that these pose an
explosive risk of spreading the virus along their migration routes as they fly
south in September (see "Infected birds poised to take flu virus south"
<http://www.nature.com/drugdisc/news/articles/boxes/436006a_bx1.html>
or ProMED-mail post archived as "Avian influenza, wild waterfowl - China (09)
20050714.2006")

At a UN meeting on avian influenza held this week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,
the WHO's western Pacific regional director, Shigeru Omi, warned that H5N1
remains at a "tipping point".

[Byline: Declan Butler]

--
ProMED-mail
<promed@promedmail.org>

[It is disappointing that there are still no hard data concerning the
prevalence of asymptomatic avian H5N1 virus infection in the Vietnamese
population. - Mod.CP]

[see also:
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (79): WHO update 20050519.1376
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (80): Viet Nam 20050519.1380
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (82): Viet Nam 20050608.1592
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (83): Viet Nam 20050609.1602
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (84): Viet Nam 20050610.1616
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (85): Viet Nam 20050614.1667
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (86): Viet Nam 20050615.1678
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (88): Viet Nam 20050616.1696
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (89): Viet Nam 20050616.1700
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (90): Viet Nam 20050617.1707
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (91): Viet Nam 20050621.1736
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (95): Viet Nam 20050628.1829
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (97): Viet Nam 20050630.1844
Avian influenza, human - East Asia (99): Viet Nam 20050714.2007]
.......................cp/pg/jw
*##########################################################*
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information, and of any statements or opinions based
thereon, are not guaranteed. The reader assumes all risks in
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[myst]

I had to come to timebomb to find this out. I live about 25 miles from Brunswick
and this is the first I heard about the Geese dying.

Interesting though two weeks ago my rooster was sick, at first I thought he ate some fermented berries and was drunk as he couldn't stand up and would fall over when he attempted to stand, he was alert though and flapped his wings for balance.

When he was worse the next day, I figured he was going to die but I put some colloidal siver in his water to see if maybe he had an infection. Even joked that ah, with my luck, he's probably got the Bird Flu, it took him about 2 weeks but he is doing OK. I did lose 2 ducks in the past couple wks. and think another is sick because she separated hereself from the rest of the group. They tend to do that when they are sick. But sometimes they just disappear and I figure some wild critters got them.

Gonna be counting and watching my birds more closely now and taking my CS myself.

 

[myst]

Haven't heard anything unusal happening at FLETC.

And Brunswick is a busy shipping port they just built a high bridge and opened it couple years ago to get more container shipping. Car carriers are going thru this community all the time from Colonial's Island, in fact lot of the locals work there detailing the incoming cars.

Did a search of the Brunswick newspaper see "thebrunswicknews.com"...came up with this article.....fair use applies.


Slugline Deaths a mystery
Date July 13, 2005
Section(s) Frontpage

Dead geese in Brunswick prompt concern, testing

By JACK MORSE

The Brunswick News

Bob Cooper was baffled.
Cooper, a retired federal agent, was on one of his usual 3-mile walks one day last week in his neighborhood when he began noticing dead geese.

Cooper, who lives near several small ponds in Cypress Run subdivision, off Old Cypress Mill Road on the northern edge of Brunswick, was used to seeing Canada geese about this time of year. But not dead ones.

"When you see dead geese lying all over the place it's, well, it's not a good thing to see," Cooper said.

Nearly a week later, geese are still dying, and no one seems to know why.

On Tuesday, Tammy Bechtold, another subdivision resident, walked around the pond behind her house and pointed to several dead geese and another that was - slowly - dying.

"It's really sad," she said. "They're really suffering."

And they're dropping, she said, "like flies."
By mid-day Tuesday, Bechtold said the toll of dead geese was up to 16. Another 21 were swimming in the pond behind Bechtold's house; she guessed that it wouldn't be long before some of them die, too.

David Mixon, a wildlife biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resources Division, said he collected four of the dead birds and delivered them to the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, a state-federal cooperative organization in Athens that specializes in wildlife disease. There, the birds will be tested to determine the cause of death. But results won't be back until the end of this week or sometime next week.

Until then, Mixon said, "We're just keeping an eye on it."

The situation is particularly puzzling because there have been no dead fish found in the ponds. Cooper said others species of birds, including ducks, that visit the ponds have also been unaffected. The geese show no outward signs of trauma.

"There's something crazy going on here," he said. "There's something definitely wrong. And we can't figure it out."

 

[juco]

I looked for a link on wavy.com before posting this and couldn't find one, sorry.

DH read this thread after supper and wondered if this stuff tied in with what we saw on the local news tonight about a section of beach being closed in the Nags Head, NC area. Supposed to have something to do with some kind of baby birds that can't fly for a couple weeks after hatching out -sand pipers? I think. Something about enforcing the endangered species act because there are only 20-some breeding pair of these birds in the area or some such. (sorry, I was cooking supper and not paying much attention to the details)

He was noodling the possibility that they may have closed that section of beach because of dead or sick birds washing up.

Or, it could really be because the tiny baby sandpiper or whatever they are babies just can't run fast enough to keep from getting squished by the tourists.

Just thought it might be worth a mention, I'm sure there must be members that live in that area?