One theory draws a connection between the die-offs and the arrival of this year’s Brood X cicadas. In the absence of hard data, there has been a lot of speculation. While it’s extremely helpful to narrow down the list of potential pathogens, investigators are still searching for leads as to the cause of the illness.
They also ruled out Newcastle disease, herpesviruses, poxviruses, salmonella, chlamydia, and trichomonas parasites. The coalition was able to strike West Nile virus and avian influenza from the list of possible causes-good news, as both viruses occasionally infect humans. The dead birds underwent a barrage of tests designed to detect everything from bacteria to fungal toxins to sexually transmitted infections.Īfter more than a month of rigorous, nationwide testing, the NWHC and its collaborators published their report ruling out several common bird pathogens. “We do post-mortem investigations, basically,” Nemeth says. But on July 2, they released a report that put them a bit closer.Ĭasey’s Kentucky bird carcasses were among the scores of birds from across the region that SCWDS ran diagnostics on. Casey’s department alone has gotten more than 1,200 calls since that first sample.Īlthough SCWDS is one of several state and federal agencies, including the United States Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC), currently working together to diagnose the mysterious ailment, none of the labs have been able to identify the cause of the birds’ deaths so far. To date, thousands of sick and dying birds have been reported to SCWDS and other wildlife disease centers in nearby states. Geological Survey Wildlife Health Information Sharing Partnership. By June, sick birds had turned up in Delaware, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, Florida, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, according to the U.S. “Sometimes they don’t seem to be able to use their hind legs.”īy the end of May, similar reports were rolling in from across Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. “They were having a hard time seeing,” says Nicole Nemeth of the SCWDS. Their eyes were swollen and crusty some became disoriented, started twitching, and died. In April, scores of birds in the greater Washington, D.C., area began displaying strange symptoms. Casey quickly asked for samples to ship to the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study (SCWDS) in Athens, Georgia. Now, it had apparently reared its head in Kentucky. It was a distressing pattern, and one that Casey recognized.įor two months, a mysterious bird disease had been rippling across parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States.
Even more worrisome, they all fit a similar demographic: mostly young Blue Jays, Common Grackles, European Starlings, and American Robins. Despite the rehabber’s best efforts, the sick birds kept dying. “They started noticing an increased number of these birds coming in with crusty eyes,” says Casey, a wildlife veterinarian with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. The week before, an alarmed wildlife researcher had reached out to her. Christine Casey shipped the first bird carcasses from Kentucky to Georgia in early June.
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