Expanded Testing To Be Done On Island’s Dead Birds To Determine Mortality Causes

As answers continue to be sought for the cause of the hundreds of dead birds being found on island beaches this winter, Nantucket Animal Rescue has announced that expanded testing will be done to determine the bird mortality causes after just three of 93 tested birds earlier this month came back positive for the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus.

Blair Perkins, a co-founder of the organization, told the Current they are hoping to test these 93 birds, as well as hundreds of others that have turned up on Coatue for the Wellfleet Bay Virus and Newcastle’s disease, both of which are neurological illnesses Nantucket Animal Rescue personnel believe could be at the root of the bird death problem.

"The mortality is one of the largest I've seen," Perkins said. "I've seen cyclical sea duck mortalities over the years growing up here, this is anecdotal as I don't have evidence to back it up but I'm pretty observant about stuff like this, but I’ll say it's definitely a really significant die off this year. So if it's not 100% HPAI, what is it?”

Rain Harbison, also a co-founder of Nantucket Animal Rescue, told the Current that the 93 tests previously taken to assess whether the dead birds had HPAI will be reused to test for the Wellfleet Bay Virus and other viruses. It is unclear where this expanded testing will take place since Tufts University’s lab does not test for WBV or Newcastle’s disease, but Harbison believes it will be in a lab somewhere in New Hampshire.

The testing method originally used was cloacal and nasal swab testing, however brain swab testing is now being done – which has resulted in more positive tests.

"They started doing these brain swabs and all of a sudden everything was coming back positive for something," Perkins said. "So this is kind of cutting edge as well to be doing the brain swaps because the virus is not shed as readily. It's a bit gruesome, but it is really, really important. If all this data was being generated saying these birds are negative and then all of a sudden, they change the strategy, the technique, and they're coming back positive – that's a really significant development."

Each test will cost approximately $20-$25 according to Perkins and Harbison, and as this work continues to be done Nantucket Animal Rescue will continue to ask for donations to help support the non-profit from islanders. Donations can be made on their website.

Harbison said they were primarily seeing male eiders and a few female eiders, but now they are suddenly seeing a lot of scoters dying.

“It used to be you'd see one or two scoters, a couple long tail (hawks) and mostly eider but it's changing," she said. "We're seeing many more scoters now, and still the eiders and a couple of loons.”

Perkins and Harbison drove out to Coatue over the weekend to reassess the number of dead birds in the area following a previous trip where they didn’t have the means available to store a large quantity of birds. Harbison told the Current that they did a bird mortality count and in less than two miles, found 248 dead birds Sunday afternoon out on Coatue.

Surf scoter- 21
White-winged scoter- 16
Black scoter- 70
Eider (M) 33
Eider (F) 10
Long-tail duck 13
Razorbill- 10
Herring gull 4
Black back- 1
Merganser (m) 3
Common Loon 6
Red throated loon
Red-necked Grebe- 1
Common Murre- 1
Unidentified dead – 68

"I've been here since I was a kid, and I pay attention to this sort of thing. This is really significant,” Perkins said. “I know the town and the state and other organizations are kind of like wait and see, but we don't want to wait and see. We get multiple calls a day not only to go rescue ducks, but also to respond to dead sightings. So we're just inundated by these calls and people are concerned. The state moves at a stale pace. The town doesn't want to acknowledge anything out of the ordinary because it is anecdotal at this point.”

Speaking with the Current earlier this month, Yvonne Vaillancourt, the director of UMass Boston’s Nantucket Field Station, said earlier this month that dogs should be leashed to control and keep them away from dead or sick birds, and that people should not be handling dead, sick, or wounded birds. She said humans are generally at low risk for a disease like HPAI, unless they handle birds – such as a poultry worker.

"HPAI has been found in other animals so there is concern about biosecurity for domestic birds and other animals and keeping them separated from dead or possibly infected birds to limit any chance of transmission,” she said. “It is hard to know what a normal number of dead birds in the winter looks like here, in particular for birds that are numerous. It does, however, seem like there are more than usual dead on the beach."

Earlier this month, The Nantucket Health Department recently issued an advisory on HPAI, urging island residents to take the following precautions:

- Avoid handling sick or dead birds and other wildlife.

- Report sightings of five or more dead wild birds in close proximity here.

- Keep pets away from wildlife, especially cats, which are vulnerable to HPAI.

- For domestic birds, report any illness or death of five or more birds to MDAR’s Division of Animal Health here.

- Hunters should follow best practices when handling wild game to minimize risks.

Nantucket Animal Rescue has been working in collaboration with the UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station as well as members of the Tufts University Medical Team to investigate the issue, and Perkins echoed the precautions issued by the Health Department.

"The thing about viruses is they mutate and if you've got a huge mortality event happening like we do this winter, you've got to take extra, extra, extra precautions," Perkins said. "We wear personal protection equipment (PPE), masking, stuff like this. Dogs, and in particularly domestic cats, are very susceptible to transmission from these viruses from the dead animals or even live animals. We've countlessly seen animals that we will monitor that are very sick, and we're monitoring them to try to keep people away and to let it die in peace because it's almost 100 percent mortality for HPAI. So just echoing, keep dogs away. Keep them leashed, or there's a good chance they're going to get sick. Even if your dog doesn't get sick if it comes home, they shed the virus for something like 160 days for HPAI in temperatures 40 degrees below.”

Perkins added that he doesn’t believe it is time for people to panic about feeding birds at bird feeders.

"It's only like three percent of common bird feeder birds are testing positive,” Perkins said. “It's really the ones that are flocking by the thousands like gulls, scoters, eiders, things like that.”

The decision of what to do with the dead birds is also something being deliberated on, according to Harbison.

"It's difficult for us to decide what to do with these birds after we've tested them because since there's been such a small percentage of HPAI, do we leave them in the food chain for the rest of the animals that need it? Or do we bury them," she said. "At this point we've been burying them, but it's a difficult decision because we're taking potentially healthy food, away from the animals that need it, but something else that we have actually witnessed ourselves are feral cats eating dead birds on the beach, and cats are extremely susceptible to HPAI so we've been working with Carol (Black) from Cattrap.”