A poisoned seagull on a Lake Erie Beach. Type-E botulism is spreading up the food chain and killing birds on the endangered species list. (Photo by Lester Graham)
A toxin that has killed tens of thousands of shorebirds throughout
the Great Lakes is back. Type-E botulism is spread up the food
chain by invasive species. And as Bob Allen reports, the toxin
recently killed four birds on the endangered species list:
Transcript
A toxin that has killed tens of thousands of shorebirds throughout
the Great Lakes is back. Type E botulism is spread up the food
chain by invasive species. And as Bob Allen reports, the toxin
recently killed four birds on the endangered species list:
There are just 60 pairs of piping plovers known in the Great
Lakes. Many of them breed along the shores of Lake Michigan.
Wildlife officials protect nesting plovers by putting up fences to
keep predators away, but they can’t keep the tiny shorebirds from
eating insects as they skitter up and down the beach. The insects
can pass on Type E botulism to the endangered birds.
Biologist Ken Hyde says the toxin gets into the food chain
through fish – primarily round gobies – that feed on algae and the
invasive zebra and quagga mussels.
“Yeah, we’ve got some pretty good evidence that it’s this cycle of
the algae and then the mussels and the gobies feeding on them
and then primarily gobies coming to the surface that our native
water birds are feeding on.”
Wildlife officials expect to see a lot more dead shorebirds as
the summer progresses.
Interns for Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania walk along a Lake Erie beach picking up dead birds. (Photo by Lester Graham)
A poisoned seagull on a Lake Erie beach. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Two interns pick up a dead seagull from a beach on Lake Erie. (Photo by Lester Graham
Researchers are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of
Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly
caused by humans. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:
Transcript
We’ve been bringing you reports from the series, ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes’ which is now looking at the threat to beaches. Our guide through the series is Lester Graham. He reports that scientists are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly caused by humans.
Researchers are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of
Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly
caused by humans. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:
Along parts of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and Lake Huron, large numbers
of dead birds and fish are washing up on shore. If they’re left there, the
disease that killed them can be passed on to other wildlife. That’s why
park officials such as Mike Mumau at Presque Isle State Park at Erie,
Pennsylvania ask their staff to watch out for the dead carcasses.
“Our interns do a great job. They’re the eyes of the staff that are out. So,
there’s probably three to four days a week that they’re out on the
beaches, checking to see if they have anything.”
Since 1998, untold numbers of fish and sometimes hundreds of dead
birds a year have washed up on just these eight miles of Lake Erie beach.
Eventually, researchers figured out the problem: type “E” botulism. It
slowly paralyzes the birds until the respiratory system shuts down. Most
of them don’t make it that long. They get so weak they can’t hold their
heads up out of the water and they drown.
(Sounds of walking and shovel)
Leslie Jones and her fellow interns are headed out to an area to pick up
some dead seagulls on the beach.
“When we’re out here doing migratory bird studies, we might see some
and then we pick them up as soon as possible. A lot of times, we get
radioed from different people like lifeguards and they have us come out
and pick them up so that the disease doesn’t spread throughout the rest of
the ecosystem.”
They find five dead birds rotting on the beach. They bury the maggots
because they could carry the botulism toxin and other birds might eat the
maggots. They shovel the bird carcass into a black plastic garbage bag.
“If they’re very fresh, this one, obviously not very fresh, but, if we get a
fresh one, we actually freeze them and they’re sent off to be tested
botulism, but, something like this we’ll just bag up until we can get them
incinerated to get rid of all the disease.”
The fresh carcasses are shipped to the National Wildlife Health Center in
Madison, Wisconsin.
There, Grace McLaughlin is among the researchers who are beginning to
put the puzzle together.
Here’s what they think is happening. The invasive species zebra mussels
and quagga mussels create huge mussel beds that begin a complicated
biological phenomenon. Organic matter collects there, and then decays. It
lowers the oxygen level in the immediate area of the mussel beds. Type
“E” botulism spores occur naturally, but when the oxygen level goes
down, they begin reproducing like crazy. The waste they produce is the
toxin.
“That toxin will accumulate in the organic matter as well as in the water
in the immediate vicinity of the mussel beds. As the mussels do their
filter feeding, they will accumulate the toxin in their tissue. They are not
susceptible to the toxin. However, when the fish start coming down
there and eating the mussels, they become intoxicated, lose their ability
to swim properly and become easy prey for the birds that come in.”
The fish that feeds on the mussels the most is another invasive species,
the round goby. Researchers made the connection when they noticed the
botulism started being a problem shortly after round gobies arrived in big
numbers.
The type “E” botulism toxin has killed tens-of-thousands of birds such as
cormorants, terns, loons, ducks, and seagulls.
Back at Presque Isle State Park, Mike Mumau says it’s terrible to see so
many birds die.
“We just do our best on our end to stop the botulism cycle. When we
can, provide samples, and also, keep it a positive recreational experience
for all our visitors. They don’t want to see birds decomposing and
rotting out on the beaches, so we’re pretty diligent with that.”
Researchers say that’s about the best that can be done. Since ocean-
going vessels brought zebra mussels, quagga mussels, and round gobies
to the Great Lakes, all three of the invasive species have flourished. It
will likely be a long time before we’ll ever begin to understand the full
extent of the damage to the native wildlife of the lakes.
Anyone who drives a car in North America likely has
an engine block molded from sand. Fairmount Minerals supplies 400-thousand tons a year of industrial sand to manufacturers like Ford Motor. Fairmount prides itself as an environmentally responsible company. Now they’re going beyond what’s required to restore land for wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bob Allen reports:
Transcript
Anyone who drives a car in North America likely has an engine block molded from sand. Fairmount Minerals supplies 400,000 tons a year of industrial sand to manufacturers like Ford Motor. Fairmount prides itself as an environmentally responsible company. Now they’re going beyond what’s required to restore land for wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bob Allen reports:
“Okay, we’ll go all the way to the east side of the property…”
Craig Rautiola comes from a family of Finnish rock miners in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He looks like he could have played linebacker on his high school football team. Now he manages four sand mines for Fairmount Minerals near the Lake Michigan shore.
“You can see a front-end loader on your right, it’s just doing a little cleanup work right now…”
Rautiola’s red Ford pick-up bounces over a rough track past a network of conveyor belts, pipelines, and silos, and 100-foot-high pile of sand. The 350-acre site is called Wexford Sand.
(Sound of heavy machinery)
Previous owners dug into the gently rolling hills to remove the sand, then left the land exposed, but Rautiola says his company has a different approach.
“We have a vision of the future that we can run a responsible operation and make a reasonable profit and provide a good product to society, but we can do so in a way that we can restore land to better than original. And we really believe that. I know that sounds like some marketing statement but we really believe that we can do a better job with this piece of land than versus the way we accepted it in the beginning.”
But to get at the sand operators still have to clear about five acres of woods a year. They used to put back the topsoil, grade the land, plant some grass and call it good. Now Rautiola says they’re getting more creative.
“We’re getting a lot more sophisticated in how we define restoration. Restoration today means getting creative with our topography trying to create water features, trying to get diverse with plant species, diverse with insect life.”
The restoration includes a series of ponds kept aerated to support fish and amphibians year around.
There’s an irrigated nursery where three thousand seedlings are under cultivation to see which ones will thrive.
Rautiola used to count success by watching deer and wild turkey return, but now he sees songbirds and shorebirds as indicators of restoration that’s working. That’s because birds require diverse habitat.
“This mature forest might be great for a scarlet tanager, but an indigo bunting would rather be over in the blackberry bushes. Over to the north we had over a hundred bank swallows just a month ago. We’re trying to attract other threatened species like osprey.”
Rautiola brought in experts to show him how to get more diversity on the site. One of them is Kay Charter. She started Saving Birds Through Habitat. The group runs a small wildlife education center in northern Michigan.
Charter says native species of grasses, plants, and trees produce the most diversity. They attract a variety of insects preferred by birds and other small critters.
“You’re going to have Yellow Warblers in here, you’ll have Common Yellowthroats in here, you’ll have Willow Flycatchers in here, you’ll have all kinds of things in there… Catbirds.”
Charter has documented forty species of songbirds and shorebirds nesting at Wexford Sand. She says that’s pretty amazing for an industrial site, but she insists the effort is necessary to lessen the impact on wildlife. She notes some worldwide populations of songbirds have declined fifty percent in the last forty years.
“I think it’s important for the future of our planet. We all have to be involved in conservation or we’re in greater trouble than we’re in today because mining does take something out of the land. But if you can put it back in a way that is used by many species then you don’t leave the footprint that you might otherwise have left.”
Fairmount Minerals has given Craig Rautiola free reign to restore the site at Wexford Sand, and he’s going all out with the effort because he believes it’s the right thing to do.
Kay Charter of Saving Birds Through Habitat hopes the company’s commitment catches on with the whole industry.
“I think it can give all of us hope that business and corporations and companies in this country aren’t all filled with greedy people at the top.”
On a ridge perched eighty feet above the floor of the sand mine is a stand of one-hundred-year-old sugar maples. Underneath the trees is a million dollars worth of sand in today’s market. And they say it’ll stay there. What they call “Maple Island” will be the centerpiece of their restoration.
A poisoned seagull on a Lake Erie Beach. Type-E botulism is spreading up the food chain and killing birds on the endangered species list. (Photo by Lester Graham)
