We Finally Know Why Utah’s Bald Eagles are Dying

I promised to keep you posted about any developments on this front.  The culprit is West Nile Virus.

Details can be found here.

13 Comments

  1. Marjie Sanders
    January 4, 2014 at 8:26 am

    This is my first time posting on your site, but I visit every Saturday morning to marvel at all of your beautiful photos and interesting, educational comments. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Wildlife Center of Virginia, but it is a top-notch wildlife rehabilitation center, veterinary hospital and teaching facility in Waynesboro, VA. Ed Clark, the founder & President of WCV, had this to say about the recent info that West Nile virus was the culprit that is killing the eagles out your way, “Yes, that is what all the mainstream reports are saying, but the scientific community is buzzing with skepticism. WE have never seen such an outbreak in the winter. There are a lot of people out there gathering more data. We can only hope that it has not broken out of the summer seasonality.” Something to think about…

    I just love your site; keep the great pics coming!

    • Ron Dudley
      January 4, 2014 at 1:17 pm

      Welcome, Marjie. I’m aware of the fine reputation of WCV but don’t know much beyond that. I hope the scientific community IS “buzzing with skepticism”. Being skeptical is part of their “job”, so that in the end we know as close to beyond doubt as possible what the real truth is. It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out.

  2. Kelly Colgan Azar
    January 1, 2014 at 4:23 am

    Thank you very much for the update. I’m sure it must have been reported in the press here, but I didn’t see it.

    Happy New Year to you and yours!

  3. Dick Harlow
    December 31, 2013 at 8:13 pm

    Many thanks Ron for the explanation. Your notice was more detailed than what NBC or CBS had on national new this evening. Because West Nile is a Mosquito borne virus I would have never guessed that would have been the culprit! Unfortunately we just have to hope that the Eagles won’t scavenge on that many Grebes before the virus looses its vitality.
    Happy New Year!

  4. Sharon Constant
    December 31, 2013 at 3:31 pm

    Thank you for this. I was unable to look at your post yesterday because I was afraid there might be images that would haunt me for too long. I got an abbreviated, censored, description of your post from my husband. Reading that the cause for the eagle deaths has been determined is a comfort.

    I know it’s a tough world out there and these things are a part of nature…but, I still see in my mind’s eye, the image of the Black-crowned Night Heron stuck in the ice, the Barn Owl from last winter with frost all over its feathers and face hunting in the daytime,and other heartbreaking images and stories I’ve come across.

    I so appreciate that you illuminate these things and get dialogs going about them, even if I’m too much of a wimp to get the info directly from your posts. I also greatly appreciate that you use titles for your posts that so clearly indicate hard-to-see content. I would never be able to be a wildlife biologist but am grateful that you are.

  5. Lane
    December 31, 2013 at 3:29 pm

    It may not be mosquito season, but there can still be a few mosquitos around; not sure what the normal time is between the bite and the ful-blown symptoms. Only mildly surprised that it would be active at this time of year, so far north, but very surprised that it’s having such an effect on eagles. Down in my neck o’ the woods, we see it primarily in Jays, Robins, Cardinals. I’d not heard of it affecting raptors, but one supposes that a mosquito will bite anything.

  6. Elephant's Child
    December 31, 2013 at 3:19 pm

    Thank you. Another reason to be decidedly unfond of mosquitoes. And I do hope that the treatment with anti-inflammatories continues to succeed.
    Another example of global weirding?

  7. Mikal Deese, CWR
    December 31, 2013 at 3:05 pm

    Well that’s really weird, because almost exclusively WNV is a blood borne, mosquito transmitted virus. We see it in the wild populations (and in us) when the mosquitos are active. This is the wrong time of year for mosquitos. I’ve never heard of a latency period. I’ve read that one mammal became ill, and the source was traced to its ingestion of an infected animal.(Don’t know how they figured that one out.)Of course we’re always on the look-out for emerging or mutating bugs. There must be more to the story. Humm…. we’ll all stay tuned.

    • William Dove
      December 31, 2013 at 3:47 pm

      There is nothing suggesting the Balds aren’t ingesting blood from some live Grebes while the Grebes and the Balds are migrating and interacting. Much of the scavenging can be on sick Grebes rather than dead examples.

      Bill

  8. William Dove
    December 31, 2013 at 2:40 pm

    Ron: I posted that on yesterday’s topic of the Bald Eagle Flaring

    Bill

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