Tag: vet

Swan Song of the Mute Swans

  • Wildlife officials want to eliminate the European mute swan so it doesn't compete with native birds. (Photo by Christina Shockley)

Controversy over what to do about a non-native swan has taken an
unusual turn. One state that was going to kill all of its mute swans
will now give some of them a short lease on life. It’s going to let
people “adopt” the wild birds. Christina Shockley has the story:

Transcript

Controversy over what to do about a non-native swan has taken an
unusual turn. One state that was going to kill all of its mute swans
will now give some of them a short lease on life. It’s going to let
people “adopt” the wild birds. Christina Shockley has the story:


Mute swans are large, gorgeous, white birds. They were brought to the
U.S. from Europe in the 1800s to beautify parks and estates. The swans
were meant to be kept in captivity, but they escaped, and since, the
numbers have skyrocketed along the Great Lakes and Eastern seaboard.


So, like in other areas, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
has come up with a plan. The state wants to shoot all the mute swans,
but this doesn’t sit well with a lot of people.


Pat Kujawa is one of them. Kujawa is sitting in her home on Phantom
Lake. The area is home to about 85% of Wisconsin’s mute swans. Each
summer for several years, Kujawa’s family has bonded with the mute
swans. She sees the birds as neighbors on the lake.


She holds a photo album full of pictures of the swans and her kids as
they grew up:


“We have pictures of our son Kyle swimming with them, and he’s probably
about I would say 8 or 9 years old, and again other pictures like that,
showing the parents standing back, and all of the babies coming up and
taking bread right out of Kyle’s hands. Sort of suggests that perhaps
the DNR characterization of them being aggressive is somewhat
misguided, or at least it’s what they want people to hear.”


Wildlife officials say the mute swans ARE aggressive, especially during
the nesting and breeding season. They say the mutes push native birds
out of their habitat and upset aquatic life by uprooting vegetation
along the shore.


Officials also say the mute swan was posing a problem as the state
worked to re-introduce the native trumpeter swan. Their numbers have
just recovered.


But because of protests from people like Kujawa, the state government
says it will temporarily modify its mute swan eradication plan. What
they’re doing might seem a little unusual. The state is going to let
people in three counties “adopt,” or sponsor, as many mute swans as they
want.


Erin Celello is from the Department of Natural Resources. She says
people won’t have to bring the birds in the house to live like a cat or
dog, but she says they will have to get the swans fixed:


“They will be able to apply for a permit, to capture a swan from the
wild, and they will be required to neuter that swan, and re-release
that swan into the wild.”


Celello says that will keep the birds from breeding, and the state
won’t shoot the birds when they see them:


“We felt that this is kind of a win-win for everyone. As an agency, we
are still upholding our share of what has become a national mute swan
control policy, while at the same time, allowing for citizens who have
formed emotional attachments to these birds, to keep those birds
around, and keep them on their landscape.”


Celello says the state’s goal is still to kill all of the mute swans. She
says officials will shoot the mutes that aren’t wearing neck tags that
show the birds have been spayed or neutered. And obviously the swans
that have the surgery won’t be having babies. One vet says the spaying
or neutering procedure could cost between 150 and 250 dollars per bird,
and Grace Graham says that might be difficult for her to afford.
Graham is Pat Kujawa’s neighbor on Phantom Lake.


The 70-year-old retired school teacher has been swimming with, and
feeding, the mute swans for years. She says the mute swans should just
be left alone and that it’s wrong to eliminate a species. But she
knows, ultimately, if it’s impossible for the birds to reproduce, the
swans will be gone at some point:


“I don’t want to even think about our lake not having any mute swans on
it. All this summer, the last time I swam with them before the water
got cold I thought, Grace, this is the last time you’re going to get to
do this. Last time you fed them, last time you do all of these things.
It’s kind of like a death thing.”


For the Environment Report, I’m Christina Shockley.

Related Links

Bird Hospital Moves Closer to the Battle

Sometimes tackling environmental problems is not as simple as rounding up volunteers and getting to work. Obstacles get in the way. In one big city, bird lovers face heavy traffic while getting injured birds to the vet. So, they’re bringing the vet a little closer to them. The GLRC’s Shawn Allee has the story:

Transcript

Sometimes tackling environmental problems is not as simple as rounding up volunteers
and getting to work. Obstacles get in the way. In one big city, bird lovers face heavy
traffic while getting injured birds to the vet, so they’re bringing the vet a little closer to
them. The GLRC’s Shawn Allee has the story:


It’s early morning and Annette Prince is scouring bushes beneath high rise office towers. She’s dodged downtown traffic for several hours now, hunting for birds; specifically,
ones that have flown into windows. Prince pulls her latest find out of a paper sack.


“This is a woodcock.”


“What do you see with the head trauma there?”


“He’s bleeding from his mouth. This bird impacted a building when we were
watching it a few minutes ago. He flew right into the glass and he died
instantaneously.”


There are survivors, though. Prince stowed some in her green mini van.

Paper sacks hold another woodcock and a tiny, grey-feathered bird called a junco.


“Both were found after they hit a building this morning. They’re resting in the bags
and they’re going to rehab where they’ll receive an evaluation by a wildlife
rehabilitator to decide what kind of treatment they need and what they’re potential
is to be released.”


Injuries such as skull fractures need quick treatment, but when Prince and others find injured birds, their options are limited. The nearest wildlife rehab center is twenty-five miles away from downtown Chicago. In heavy traffic, the drive takes a while.


“People have indicated a great desire to step up and help whenever they can. Up
until now, we’ve had to tell them there wasn’t any place they could take the birds
they found, short of having to drive for more than an hour. And many city residents
can’t. They either don’t have cars or that’s too far a distance.”

But if you can’t get birds to the vets at the rehab center maybe you can bring the vets
closer to the birds. A new bird hospital’s opening near downtown, where people can
reach it by bus or a short cab ride.


Dawn Keller runs a rehab center in a Chicago suburb, and soon she’ll oversee the new
downtown hospital. She says when she’s finished the city will have its own miniature avian ER for immediate
treatment.


“We’ll be moving in things such as scales, so we can weigh the birds when they come
in, so we can properly dose the medicine. We’ll be bringing in cages, refrigerator,
food supplies, all of the things that we’ll need to properly care for the birds.”


Keller says, birds with the most serious injuries will recover out in her suburban rehab
center. The bird urgent care center isn’t just good for birds, it’s good for volunteers. Keller says area bird watchers bring in about nine hundred birds a year, and sometimes
the volunteers are overwhelmed especially during peak migration times.


“Our peak day, I think was about 127 in one day. We put in a lot of hours on those
days; those are pretty much sleepless nights.”


Keller says, the sleepless nights and long drives through traffic out to the rehab center
add up to volunteer fatigue.

She hopes the convenience of a closer hospital will keep more volunteers on board. Wildlife rehab experts say the Chicago hospital’s part of a trend; professionals are getting
help closer to the problem and making it easier on volunteers. Elaine Thrune directs the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association. She says most wildlife care centers are small and heavily rely on volunteers.


“Even at a center you have some staff, but the actual hands-on care of feeding the
birds or assisting the veterinarian is done by volunteers.”


Thrune says rehab centers face a location conundrum. Volunteers rescue wildlife in cities or suburbs, but rehab centers and professional staff
are often in far away, rural areas. That’s because injured animals recover best when they’re away from noise and people,
but Thrune says rehab centers are experimenting. They’re opening intake centers in popular spots, like shopping malls.


“It’s a convenient place for people to bring things and to drop them off. And it’s a
good place for a veterinarian or a trained rehabilitator to examine them
immediately and then do what’s necessary.”


Thrune says the drop-off centers are like hospital triages; staff patch up the easy cases
quickly. Then, animals with more serious injuries recover out in the country. The
Chicago bird watchers and wildlife rehabbers are betting on this strategy. They say they’ll need to if they’re to keep the current stable of helpers, and they hope
with the convenience of the nearby downtown center more people will scour near
downtown Chicago for injured birds.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

WHAT IS CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE? (Part 1)

Wildlife officials in the Midwest are battling the appearance of a deadly illness found in elk and deer. Called chronic wasting disease, or CWD, this ailment attacks an animal’s brain, slowly eating away healthy tissue. Several captive elk herds in the western U.S. and Canada have been infected with chronic wasting disease. Those herds have now been quarantined, but not before other animals from those herds were sold to farmers in 21 states nationwide, including several in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd Melby has this first report of a two-part series:

Transcript

Wildlife officials in the Midwest are battling the appearance of a deadly illness found in elk and deer. Called chronic wasting disease, or CWD, this ailment attacks an animal’s brain, slowly eating away healthy tissue. Several captive elk herds in the western U.S. and Canada have been infected with chronic wasting disease. Those herds have now been quarantined, but not before other animals from those herds were sold to farmers in 21 states nationwide, including several in the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd Melby reports.


Chronic wasting disease is a neurological disorder. That means it affects the nervous system of elk and deer. It’s related to a number of other conditions, including scrapies in sheep and mad cow disease. Humans can also contract something similar — it’s called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.


All these conditions are related — and that’s making some health officials nervous. That’s because at least one, mad cow, can be transferred to humans. Dennis Stauffer is a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He says now more and more people are also keeping an eye on CWD.


“It’s been called the mad cow disease of deer. It is certainly similar biologically. There are also some important differences. Unlike mad cow disease, or CWD as we call it, we don’t yet have any evidence it is transmittable to humans. So that particular health risk is not confirmed.”


But that doesn’t stop people from worrying.


In the 1990s, mad cow disease in Great Britain triggered a similar ailment in humans, eventually killing dozens of people. But public health officials downplayed that possibility, leading to less vigilance in eliminating mad cow. Some people now say the same thing is happening here with CWD. Sheldon Rampton is the author of “Mad Cow U.S.A.”


“You are getting the same pattern of reassurances. The same pattern of government authorities and government scientists coming forward and not quite saying there is no danger, but saying they don’t see any evidence of danger. And then saying that in such a way that the public is led to believe that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.”


One of the problems is, little is known about the disease. Kris Petrini is a veterinarian with the Minnesota Board of Animal Health.


“We don’t know exactly what the incubation period is. We don’t know the youngest possible time an animal can get infected. The testing itself, right now, the only test we have that we can do is the animal has to be sacrificed and the brain tested.”


The outward signs of CWD aren’t exhibited until death is near. Again, Dennis Stauffer of the Minnesota DNR.


“Well, if you were to see a picture of one of these animals, they would be stumbling around, they would look wasted away. In advance stages, they would look disoriented, they would tend not to fear humans. They would look very, very sick and it would be very obvious that they are sick animals.”


Since learning that 36 elk from CWD-infected herds in Colorado and Canada were imported to Minnesota, state officials have set up a voluntary CWD surveillance program. All herds with exposed animals are participating in the program. Of the elk tested for CWD so far, none have had CWD.


(sound from Spooner, Wisconsin deer testing station: Cars on nearby two-lane highway.)


In neighboring Wisconsin, state officials are aggressively testing for CWD. On the opening weekend of deer hunting season, veterinarians took hundreds of brain samples from dead animals at locations throughout the state. In previous years, such efforts turned up no cases of CWD in the wild deer population, just like Minnesota. Ken Jonas is a wildlife biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.


“Right now, I’m not too concerned. If I were in Colorado or perhaps Wyoming or a state that was near to a chronic infection, I would be very concerned.”


While Kris Petrini, the Minnesota veterinarian, understands CWD hasn’t made it into the wild deer population, she says she wouldn’t be surprised to find it among the captive elk population in the state.


“No, not completely. Not with the number of elk we have and the amount of trading that goes on in the industry, I think it is highly possible that we will find chronic wasting disease.”


Six western states are home to elk herds with CWD infections. Elk farmers in another 15 states — including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania — own animals from the original infected herds. So far, tests haven’t turned up any traces of CWD in herds with exposed animals in those states.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Todd Melby in Minneapolis.

KEEPING AN EYE ON CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE (Part 2)

Several captive elk in Colorado have tested positive for chronic wasting disease. This fatal neurological ailment attacks an animal’s brain, slowly eating away healthy tissue. Chronic wasting disease, or CWD, has also spread to the wild deer population near the Colorado and Wyoming border. That’s prompted wildlife officials in the Midwest to begin looking for CWD in their wild deer herds. In the second of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd Melby visited one such testing site in rural Wisconsin and filed this report:

Transcript

Several captive elk in Colorado have tested positive for chronic wasting disease. This fatal neurological ailment attacks an animal’s brain, slowly eating away healthy tissue. Chronic wasting disease, or CWD, has also spread to the wild deer population near the Colorado and Wyoming border. That’s prompted wildlife officials in the Great Lakes region to begin looking for CWD in their wild deer herds. Todd Melby of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium visited one such testing site in rural Wisconsin and filed this report.


The opening of the deer-hunting season in Wisconsin is a big day for Pauline Nol. But it’s not because she’s a hunter. Nol is a veterinarian. Instead of wearing a blaze orange vest, Nol sports a blue Dickie jumpsuit. She’ll need it to keep the blood of dead deer from staining her clothes.


(sound of medical instruments, followed by background sound of Nol and another vet moving instruments around on a table)


Nol and another veterinarian are arranging medical instruments on a folding table. It’s the kind of portable table you might find in a school cafeteria or church basement. Only today, the table is set up outside, in the parking lot of a Department of Natural Resources building just outside Spooner, a small town in northwestern Wisconsin.


In about a half hour, hunters will be pulling up in their pickup trucks to register deer they’ve shot just this morning. When they do, Nol, who works at the Department of Interior’s National Wildlife Health Center, will ask hunters if she might take a few samples from the carcass. The purpose: To check for chronic wasting disease.


Chronic wasting disease is a fatal neurological illness that is part of the same family of diseases as scrapies in sheep, mad cow disease in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. CWD destroys a deer’s brain and is always fatal. Before death, the infected animal seems listless, confused and often stumbles around aimlessly.


There is concern among some people that CWD may be transmittable to humans. Yet many states in the Great Lakes region, such as nearby Minnesota, have just begun testing for CWD in wild deer herds. While it still seems limited to captive herds, officials are worried the disease could spread. Dennis Stauffer is a spokesman for the Minnesota DNR.


“The greatest problem, we think, in terms of not just the animals but in terms of human health is if this gets into the wild population. That would be, I think, very problematic. Because then once it’s no longer just limited to captive animals, then you have a real issue of how in the world do you get to it and eradicate it.”


In Wisconsin, veterinarians like Nol, have been testing dead deer since 1999. So far, the news has been good. No cases of CWD have been detected in the state’s wild deer herds.


(sound from deer testing station: Cars on nearby two-lane highway)


Back at the parking lot, employees are now ready to tag incoming deer. And that’s got Nol busy too. She strolls over to a couple standing next to a dead buck resting its head on the tailgate of a red pickup.


“Who got the deer this morning? That would be you? Congratulations. That’s great, that’s really great. So, we’re doing some sampling for looking at different diseases in the deer herd. So we’re wondering if we could take some samples from your deer?”


The pair agrees and Nol gets busy. The first thing she does is pull the deer’s head beyond the edge of the tailgate. And then she begins slicing through the fur and into the neck.


“What I’m doing is I’m making a cut in the neck just behind the jaw line. And that exposes the base of the brain, the brain stem and those lymph nodes we’re looking for.”


The lymph nodes are tested for bovine tuberculosis, or TB, a disease that’s been found in Michigan’s free-ranging deer herd since 1994. Wisconsin began testing deer for TB in 1996 and has yet to find an incidence of the disease.


The man who shot the deer is Tom Hack of Hartford, Wisconsin. Once the brain stem, lymph nodes and blood samples are analyzed back at Nol’s lab, Hack will be notified of the results.


There’s been no evidence linking CWD to humans. However, the state is testing deer for diseases and I ask Hack if that gives him pause.


“Well, sure. If I’m going to be eating the meat. Yeah, yeah it would worry me.”


“So, are you going to wait until you get the postcard back before you eat the meat?”


“No, I don’t think so.”


A little later, I catch up with Ken Jonas. He’s a wildlife biologist with the state DNR. This morning, he shot a deer himself. And now he’s tagging animals nabbed by other hunters. I ask him if hunters should wait until they receive their postcards back in the mail before eating the meat.


“No. Again, we consider all the deer currently to be safe in the state of Wisconsin. The monitoring is being done to determine if there is a problem at this point in time. We have no detects of either of those diseases in the wild herd.”


The reason for the testing, Jonas says, isn’t to let individual hunters know of a personal health risk, but to see if CWD has found its way into the state’s wild deer herds. For the Great Lake Radio Consortium, I’m Todd Melby in Minneapolis.