(e) = estimate * = morbidity and mortality

REPORTERS: National Wildlife Health Center (NW); Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study (SC); Virginia Department of Agriculture& Consumer Services, Ivor Regional Laboratory (VA); Pennsylvania State University Diagnostic Laboratory (PA); Idaho Fish & Game, Wildlife Health Laboratory (ID).

Written and compiled by Kathryn Converse, Kimberli Miller, Linda Glaser, Terry Creekmore, and Audra Schrader, National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC). To report mortality or if you would like specific information on these mortalities, contact one of the following NWHC staff: Western US Kathryn Converse; Eastern US--Kimberli Miller; Hawaiian Islands--Thierry Work. Phone (608) 270-2400, FAX (608) 270-2415 or E-mail kathy_converse@usgs.gov. National Wildlife Health Center, 6006 Schroeder Road, Madison, WI 53711.

Quarterly Mortality Reports

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service received reports of sick and dead waterfowl in corn fields and adjacent flooded rice fields in several northeast/east central Louisiana parishes from November 1998 through late February 1999. Estimated losses exceeded 10,000 birds; the primary species affected were snow (and blue) geese. An estimated 100 waterfowl of other species were affected including Ross' and white-fronted geese and mallards. Waterfowl were observed feeding in corn fields that had not been harvested due to high levels of aflatoxin; some fields had been disced and the corn knocked down in others. Freshly dead and euthanized geese were sent to the National Wildlife Health Center and Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study for examination. At necropsy, lesions characteristic of aflatoxicosis were observed in most geese which included hemorrhagic hepatocellular necrosis and biliary duct hyperplasia and proliferation. Some geese had degenerative lesions in other organs including the spleen, pancreas, lungs and kidneys. Aflatoxin B1 and B2 were detected in stomach contents from one snow goose at the NWHC. Corn collected from fields where the geese had been feeding and where mortality occurred contained levels of aflatoxin as high as 8,200 ppb; far exceeding FDA acceptable levels of <100 ppb for poultry. (source: NWHC and SCWDS reports)

The first reported occurrence of duck plague in Arkansas has been diagnosed in waterfowl submitted to the NWHC by natural resource managers at Little Rock Air Force Base. Fifteen Muscovy ducks, two mallards, and one Pekin duck were found dead on the base lake between April 28, and May 10, 1999. DVE was isolated from one Muscovy and one mallard submitted to the NWHC. Approximately 100 ducks including mallards, mallard hybrids, Pekin ducks, Muscovy ducks, and wood ducks remained at the lake after the mortality event. Approximately 30 Canada geese also frequent the lake on a daily basis.

For additional information please contact Dr. Scott Wright, USGS National Wildlife Health Center - Disease Investigations Branch Chief, at 608-270-2460 or Paul Slota, USGS National Wildlife Health Center - Support Services Branch Chief at 608-270-2420.