death toll high for Great Lakes birds

E-mail received Friday...very sad news.

As of November 18 we have recorded just over 2000 dead birds on 93 miles of shoreline stretching from Peninsula Point in Delta County to Cathead Point in Leelanau County...

As a conservative estimate of the total shoreline distance between these endpoints is roughly 350 miles, potentially 7500 birds have potentially perished within this region alone...

The top five species that we have documented [deaths of] are Common Loon (508), Long-tailed duck (505), White-winged scoter (207)...

The most notable Common Loon among our discoveries was a banded adult from Seney NWR who had been monitored for 14 years and during this time produced 17 chicks, including one this season. His discovery stands as the first evidence that a portion of the very high Common Loon numbers represents birds breeding in Michigan, where the species remains a threatened species...

Carcasses from a wide variety of bird species collected along the lake have tested positive for botulism E at the Michigan DNR's Wildlife Disease Lab. This current outbreak on Lake Michigan follows a trend of increasing botulism-related mortality on the Great Lakes; only Lake Superior has thus far remained exempt from the problem.

More about botulism E here:

http://www.miseagrant.umich.edu/habitat/avian-botulism-faq.html