RE: Bird Botulism?

[Cameron Davis <cdavis@lakemichigan.org>]

Through a little research, and found that botulism in the Great Lakes
appears to be cyclical.

See attached article from a 1963 Chicago Tribune article.



-----Original Message-----
From: Richard L Whitman [mailto:richard_whitman@usgs.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 12:42 PM
To: beachnet@great-lakes.net
Subject: Bird Botulism?


I have a question?

A few summers ago we started noticing gulls dying in particularlly high
number in August at a beach we were studying.  These birds at first seemed
'drunk' at first, then began losing coordination and equilibrium.  They
would then lose the ability to walk and would soon died thereafter. That
was the same time old masses of anaerobic Cladophora was accumulating on
the beach.  Lately, I've been wondering if these bird might have picked up
some botulism from the algal mats.  As anybody else noticed this
phenomenon? Can you remember if it was coincidental with these anaerobic
mats or during this season?   Would you be on the look out this summer for
it, especially if you have big mats of Cladophora?  Let me know what you
think.


Richard Whitman



* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
beachnet is hosted by the Great Lakes Information Network:
http://www.great-lakes.net
To unsubscribe from this list: send mail to majordomo@great-lakes.net
with the command 'unsubscribe beachnet' in the body of your message. No
quotes or subject line are required.
About : http://www.great-lakes.net/lists/beachnet/beachnet.info
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Chicago Tribune.121263.doc