OT: Mould kills 200 Chilliwack wild ducks

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Mould kills 200 Chilliwack wild ducks

Birds dead in park cleared of avian flu

Globe and Mail - Canada

MARK HUME

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061010.BCDUCKS10/T

PStory/National

VANCOUVER -- Visitors to a lovely urban park in Chilliwack were

shocked last week to see wild ducks staggering across pathways and

dropping dead as city workers filled one black garbage bag after

another with carcasses.

" It was horrible, " said Jaster, an artist who walks through

Sardis Park almost every day.

" Everywhere you looked, ducks were gasping for breath. They crawled

out on the banks and died. . . . They were floating dead in the

water and there were stacks of black bags everywhere. "

Ms. Jaster, who used to raise geese and ducks, said park workers

couldn't tell her what was wrong and like a lot of others in the

Fraser Valley -- where the poultry industry has been devastated by

avian influenza outbreaks in recent years -- she spent the weekend

wondering whether disease or pollution was to blame for the mass

mortality of the ducks.

About 200 wild ducks died within a few days last week in the park.

The dead birds were rushed to the provincial Ministry of

Agriculture's Animal Health Centre in Abbotsford, and test results

were confirmed yesterday by Ron , chief veterinarian for the

province.

" I can tell you that it was not avian flu. That's one thing, of

course, everybody is pretty psyched up about and ourselves included.

Those tests were run right away, " Dr. said in an interview

from his home.

" We got quite a few birds. The pathologist who looked at them said

every one of them was exactly the same. They were all mallards, and

they all died of pulmonary aspergillosis. "

Fatal outbreaks of aspergillosis, are caused when fungal spores are

inhaled.

Outbreaks can occur in both wild and domestic birds. Aspergillosis

has been known to kill thousands of birds at a time.

This summer in the Montana community of Big Stone Colony, southeast

of Great Falls, more than 3,000 American white pelicans and double-

crested cormorants were killed by the infection.

Dr. said birds get aspergillosis from eating mouldy feed.

" Aspergillis is a very common fungus, or mould agent if you

like. . . . I can imagine that what's happened is these ducks have

gotten into a bunch of mouldy feed and of course they dig their

noses right into it . . . disturb all this mould and end up

breathing it in. "

The pulmonary aspergillosis outbreak is not a human health concern,

he said.

Bowes, an avian pathologist with the animal-health centre,

said the dead birds were tested soon after officials were alerted to

them.

" We do have a working wild-bird mortality investigation plan. It's a

co-operative agreement between the Canada Wildlife Service and

Ministry of Environment. . . . the third arm being the Ministry of

Agriculture and the health lab. There is a reporting stream and

triage that goes on, and it works really, really well because we

work together as teams. "

Animal-health experts have been on high alert in the Fraser Valley

since avian flu spread through area poultry farms in 2004, leading

to the destruction of nearly 17 million birds in what was a

successful move to contain the virus.