A whole bunch of red-breasted mergansers have been discovered both lifeless or sick over the previous few days alongside Lake Michigan in Chicago and into the northern suburbs.
Officers suspect that extremely contagious fowl flu is the reason for the diseases discovered within the mergansers, a species of diving duck that winters within the Nice Lakes area.
Chicago Chicken Collision Screens, a volunteer conservation group, started receiving stories Friday from individuals discovering “giant numbers” of mergansers alongside the shores from Hyde Park to Wilmette, the group’s director, Annette Prince, mentioned.
Two of the most important concentrations of sick mergansers — roughly 50 every — had been discovered Saturday at North Avenue Seashore and Oak Avenue Seashore, Prince mentioned. About the identical quantity, if no more, had been seen floating within the lake.
Prince estimated that round 200 to 300 contaminated mergansers had been reported to her group between Friday and Sunday.
It’s the primary time that such numerous mergansers has been suspected of fowl flu infections, which has been on the rise in waterfowl and different birds all through Illinois and the U.S. in current months.
Final month, a bald eagle present in Hinsdale was euthanized after it gave the impression to be contaminated with fowl flu, and in south suburban Matteson, a family-run farm misplaced its whole flock of practically 3,000 hens to the illness.
“The unfold has appeared to succeed in out to a different species right here with the large variety of mergansers which might be presently exhibiting all of the signs of fowl flu,” Prince mentioned. “This can be a actual change within the type of fowl and within the numbers that we had seen.”
Nearly all of mergansers picked up by Prince’s group had been lifeless, she mentioned, and the sick ones had been “not surviving properly,” however volunteers have picked them as much as keep away from different animals approaching them and getting contaminated.
Prince mentioned seeing a merganser on land is the primary clue that one thing could also be amiss.
“They actually shouldn’t be on land,” she mentioned. “These birds solely come on land after they’re in misery and now not robust sufficient to fly or navigate the waters of the lakes, so it’s regarding if anybody notices these birds misplaced from their typical aquatic setting.”
A pair different mergansers sick with suspected fowl flu had been discovered over the weekend in parking tons at Lincoln Park Zoo and the Outdated Orchard Heart in Skokie, Prince mentioned.
Signs of fowl flu embrace weak spot, incapability to face up and transfer, tremors, inexperienced diarrhea and common respiratory and neurological issues.
“We all know this virus does very properly in chilly climate, and it’s going to remain round, so far as we all know, till we get a break and hotter temperatures, so we’re fearful that this might proceed to unfold to different species, other forms of birds,” Prince mentioned.
The U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention has reported 67 circumstances of fowl flu in people since 2024, with virtually the entire circumstances in individuals who labored with livestock or poultry. One human demise from the virus has been reported — a Louisiana man with underlying well being circumstances who died final month.
As of Jan. 28, infections had been detected in additional than 11,000 wild birds throughout the nation for the reason that outbreak began in 2022, in response to the CDC.
Yard and industrial poultry have suffered drastically from the illness, with practically 150 million chickens, turkeys and different birds affected, the CDC mentioned. Additionally it is forcing farmers to slaughter hundreds of thousands of chickens a month, pushing U.S. egg costs to greater than double their worth from the summer time of 2023.
Related Press contributed.
