Biologists to keep closer eye on northern eider ducks in face of die-offs
Federal government biologists say they will expand their monitoring of common eider ducks in Canada's North, as concerns escalate over avian cholera in northern bird colonies.
Avian cholera is a naturally occurring disease that kills birds but does not affect humans. Highly contagious, the disease was responsible for killing more than 3,000 common eider ducks at the East Bay Migratory Bird Sanctuary on Southampton Island in Nunavut in 2006.
Thousands more ducks were found dead last year at the East Bay sanctuary, which is considered to have the largest common eider duck colony in Arctic Canada.
Currently, avian cholera is present in south Baffin Island, northern Hudson Bay, the Hudson Strait and the Nunavik region in northern Quebec, said Grant Gilchrist, a research scientist with Environment Canada.
"The good news is it's restricted to that area. The bad news is it's not going away and it has the potential of spreading further north, and that's something we're trying to monitor," Gilchrist told CBC News.
"We're monitoring that with the help of local communities."
Gilchrist said his department is adding the hamlet of Igloolik to the Nunavut communities that are monitoring duck populations.
"We're focusing on Kimmirut, Cape Dorset, Coral Harbour [and] Rankin Inlet, and we're expanding the program now to Igloolik," he said.
"We're also working with Sanikiluaq who also has a resident population of the Hudson Bay eider duck there."
The monitoring program will also involve interviewing Inuit elders to understand whether disease outbreaks have ever occurred in local bird populations, Gilchrist said.
The department is also sending information about avian cholera to local hunters' and trappers' organizations across the eastern Arctic in the hopes that northerners will report any signs of mass duck die-offs.
'Ramping up our monitoring'
"How long it will persist and how many birds it kills, we're not sure. But it's certainly a concern and we're ramping up our monitoring to keep track of it," Gilchrist said.
Prior to the 2006 deaths, avian cholera had never been detected north of northern Quebec's Nunavik region. It was first detected in Nunavik in 2003, when about 200 dead birds were found.
Makivik Corp. in Nunavik is working with Inuit communities in northern Quebec, he added.
Gilchrist said Environment Canada is also collaborating with authorities in Greenland and Alaska to determine whether the disease is moving east or west.
So far, he said, there is no avian cholera in Greenland or Alaska. But officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are watching Gilchrist's work, saying they are concerned with avian cholera spreading south to the American East Coast.
"What Grant learns up in the North could have implications for populations in the south as well," Tim Bowman, a spokesman with the U.S. service in Alaska, told CBC News.
A distinct race of common eider ducks migrates west from the Northwest Territories along the coast of Alaska and Russia, but Gilchrist said some ducks drop in on colonies in Nunavut, thus potentially spreading avian cholera.
The ducks that die of the disease tend to attract scavengers such as ravens and gulls, which then travel to other bird colonies and spread the disease, Gilchrist said.