EMPIRE (WWJ) - It's not a scene from the famous Alfred Hitchcock movie, but it sure looked like it after "large number" of birds were discovered dead at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore last weekend.
According to a Facebook post by park officials, the birds are believed to have died from an outbreak of botulism which isn't uncommon for the area and has become more widespread in recent years.
"Outbreaks of avian botulism have been occurring in the Great Lakes region since at least the 1960s and the severity ranges from year to year," officials wrote.
The park does keep record of mass avian casualty events as part of the on-going Avian Botulism research project and deploys their Avian Botulism Monitoring crew, consisting of NPS staff and volunteers, to investigate when dead birds are found.
The crew removes or buries the dead birds to prevent further spread of disease to wildlife scavengers or to nearby piping plovers, a federally endangered bird.
Officials said that some of the bird carcasses are submitted to the lab for testing.
"While spores of E. botulinum are naturally and widely distributed in the environment, toxin production occurs only when suitable environmental conditions allow spore germination and cell growth," park officials went on to explain. "The toxin is a neurotoxin, which causes paralysis and is usually fatal."
The toxin is made in lake, although how to gets to the birds remains a mystery.
"It is thought that the invasion of dreissenid mussels (Dreissena spp.) has created favorable conditions for the accelerated growth of native Cladophora (the green algae often seen on beaches)," the park explained. "As water warms and algae decay in thick mats on the bottom, anaerobic conditions develop and the bacteria begins producing profuse amounts of the toxin. The toxin is then ingested by the invasive round goby and other fish that feed on plankton. Birds get sick by eating these contaminated fish or by scavenging dead birds containing the toxin."
In light of the latest large bird death, park officials are reminding visitors and guests not to touch or handle any sick or dead bird to prevent transmitting the toxin -- and because unauthorized handling of wildlife is illegal in the park.
"Please remember never to touch wildlife without proper personal protective equipment (PPE) and training," the park warned.
If you happen to come across any sick, injured or dead wildlife, the park urges all reports be made to officials with latitude and longitude coordinates if possible.
For more details and contact info for reporting, visit our website:
https://www.nps.gov/slbe/learn/nature/sick-birds.htm
