Beak deformities starving some birds in B.C. and U.S. Northwest

U.S. researchers are collecting information about a disease that's killing birds in the U.S. Northwest and in parts of Canada.

The Washington State-based Falcon Research Group, a non-profit conservation group, is asking the public to report sightings of birds with "long-billed syndrome." It's a deformity that leaves birds with overly long beaks and unable to feed, so they starve to death. 

The research group has recorded about 160 birds with the deformity since 2000 in western Washington and southern British Columbia.

It has also been documented in Alaska, where it appears to have started in the early 1990s.

One scientist, Washington State University microbiologist Lindsay Oaks, says chemical contaminants are a leading contender for being found the cause.