Caeley Thacker, a wildlife veterinarian with the BC Department of Forestry, says there is an interagency effort with Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Department of Agriculture to closely monitor the current bald eagle population and nests. “They have 22 active nests that they’re monitoring and right now, only five are still active,” Thacker told CBC’s The Early Edition on Monday. “The report from last year was about half of the nests monitored were active, so it’s lower this year.” He said the province has begun closely monitoring bald eagles and collecting data to find out what causes low nest success and why so few nests have chicks. Jim Springer shared this photo of a bald eagle taken in southwest Calgary’s Carburn Park in the spring of 2021. Thacker says bird flu is contributing to the bird deaths, but they need to gather more information about what’s going on with their food source to determine the cause. (Jim Springer) Thacker said some birds have tested positive for avian flu, but that doesn’t appear to be the only factor contributing to the dramatic decline in young eagles in the southwestern part of the province, as well as the increase in reports of dead birds. “Other factors can be the weather. We have had a particularly cold and wet spring, but we [also] we need to further consider what happens to the food source. We still don’t know exactly what’s going on.” He said raptor species such as eagles and other raptors are particularly susceptible to bird flu as they could consume a carcass or a live infected bird. “As of last week, we tested about 40 eagles and had 10 positive for this highly pathogenic strain of bird flu.” As the spring migration continues, he said jurisdictions to the north are also seeing more birds infected with bird flu. The province said in a written statement that it has collected 47 dead eagles since February, 12 of which had tested positive for bird flu.
Mill Lake a ‘total disaster’
Elizabeth Melnick, the founder of Elizabeth’s Wildlife Center in Abbotsford, says the number of calls and reports of Canada geese and geese showing bird flu symptoms at Mill Lake started to spike in late May and June. He said things have slowed down in the past two weeks, but he has never seen the virus affect so many wild birds. “People were saying there were dead geese all over the place and it was really, really bad,” Melnyk told CBC News. “It was mainly Mill Lake.” The lake near the Trans-Canada Highway in Abbotsford is a popular community area, Melnick said, with a nature trail around the water, a picnic and play area for families and an outdoor pool. He said the center received reports of dead geese up to four times a day in June. Canada geese on Trout Lake in Vancouver on March 19, 2020. Melnick says they’ve been getting calls from people about dead or dying Canada geese on Mill Lake in Abbotsford. (Maggie MacPherson/CBC) “Mill Lake was a complete disaster. We had so many calls of dead and dying Canada geese. We have babies and frequent feeders in this area and the calls never stopped,” Melnick said. He said the center also received two ducks from Aldergrove that tested positive for bird flu and a great blue heron from Chilliwack. “It’s always the same symptoms. The head shakes, the stargazing, it’s all neurological. The geese also had snowy white eyes, and they were also lethargic.”
Keeping contamination out of the environment
While outbreaks are easier to maintain in an agricultural environment, there’s not much that can be done for wild birds, Thacker says, so the best we can do is prevent environmental contamination. “The best we can do is remove the carcasses from the landscape and prevent the birds from congregating as much as possible,” he said. He said there has been a decline in eagles on the West Coast since last year. “We need to understand what’s causing this and what, if anything, we can do about it.” Although bird flu can be difficult to detect, he said bird watchers can watch for swollen eyes or heads and lethargic behavior.
