![]() ![]() Virginia, for example, has a public reporting system for anyone to record sick or dead birds they’ve observed, including symptoms, species, and location. “I’m still desperately trying to understand the distribution” of the epidemic, he says.Įvery state has its own system for data collection, and some are more robust than others, he says. However, total and even statewide numbers remain tricky to determine, says Evans, who specializes in population ecology of migrating and resident birds. “It doesn’t look like we’ve seen anything at this scale in at least quite a while,” Evans says. It died as I was preparing to take it to City Wildlife.”Īlso exceptional: The sheer spread of the disease cases, which have been seen in at least 12 states, and D.C. “One American crow was just standing in the street,” near his house in May, Evans says. “What makes it significant is the number of birds that have been ill or have died and the number of species that have been impacted.” Cases have also emerged in Carolina wrens, gray catbirds, cardinals, house finches, sparrows, and others. “This event is remarkable,” ornithologist Evans says. And as wildlife rehabilitation facilities have struggled to cope with the emotional toll of euthanizing suffering birds they can’t help, experts are racing to understand what might be going on. Though reported cases began to dwindle in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia by the end of June, new cases continue to be reported in other states. Lab tests have ruled out some possible causes such as West Nile virus and avian influenza, leaving scientists struggling to come up with new hypotheses.īy Jim Monsma Executive Director of City Wildlife Thousands of young birds, including blue jays, common grackles, American robins, and European starlings, have suddenly gone blind, oozing from their eyes, shaking, and dying. The District of Columbia and at least 12 states on the East Coast, from Connecticut to Florida to Tennessee, are in the midst of a songbird epidemic. “I went in there, and they were like, Oh, yeah, this is really serious.” “I grabbed it and took it to City Wildlife,” he says, referring to a wildlife rehabilitation and release center in D.C. Half an hour after that, another neighbor called him to look at a bird that had crusty eyes and couldn’t balance. Later that day, a colleague started texting him photos of dead birds. “That’s not your typical dying fledgling.” ![]() “That’s when this little flash went off in my head saying, that’s pretty unusual,” Evans says. When she walked up to it, it didn’t budge. It looked like it was blind, she said, and it was shaking. Then, while Evans was in his garden on May 28, his neighbor came over to tell him about a bird she had just found on the road. “ Everybody got into birds last year, and then this year they realize birds have awful lives!” And with people stuck at home during the pandemic, “we’re noticing these things,” Evans says. Bird deaths in the spring are common-only 30 percent of young songbirds typically survive to the next season. When migratory bird ecologist Brian Evans first started hearing about dead birds across Washington, D.C., in mid-May, he “wrote it off,” says Evans, who’s on staff at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's Migratory Bird Center. ![]()
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