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West Nile Virus: Crow Corpse Corps
Volunteer collectors of bird corpses are on front line of West Nile fight
Grand Forks Herald
July 6, 2004

(AP) MINNEAPOLIS - Some people keep ice cream in the freezer. Terry Selle had a dead crow, but at least he was happy to share.

"It's downstairs in our party room," he told Kirk Johnson pleasantly, before leading Johnson to his basement freezer where he pulled out a newly dead crow, carefully wrapped in plastic.

Last week, Selle joined the growing ranks of citizen warriors in the battle against West Nile disease when he spotted a sickly looking bird and notified authorities.

Birds that drop dead for no apparent reason - especially crows and blue jays - are often the first sign that West Nile virus has arrived in an area, long before any people get sick. It turns out that birds are far more vulnerable than people to the mosquito-borne virus.

That's why Johnson, an ecologist with the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District, and his counterparts at the state Health Department have appealed to the public to join in what may seem like a slightly macabre sport: dead-bird watching. Think of them as the Crow Corpse Corps.

"We really can pinpoint where the virus is active at any one time based on these crow deaths," said Johnson, who helps collect the birds for testing. "And without the reports from the public, we really have no idea where birds are sick and dying."

Already, hundreds of reports of doomed birds have poured into the Health Department this season, in what has become an annual tradition since 2002, when the first West Nile case was reported in Minnesota.

So far, few of the birds have tested positive. But Dave Neitzel, head of mosquito-borne diseases at the Health Department, knows that's likely to change. In the past two years, he said, "we found the virus in almost every county." Last year, 57 percent of the birds tested in his lab had West Nile virus, up from 43 percent the year before.

Of course, the investigators are pretty selective about the ones they test, as callers are often surprised to discover. Out of almost 10,000 dead birds reported last year, only 754 were tested. Much of the detective work, it turns out, is done without anyone leaving the office.

Last week, three graduate students were sifting through dead-bird reports and talking to witnesses by phone, looking for clues. Sometimes, they can rule out West Nile as a culprit quickly. "This one sounds like a cat probably got it," Tim Boyer, one of the investigators, tells a caller. Ever polite, he adds: "Thanks for calling."

They pass up most of the offerings, Neitzel said. They have to match criteria such as species, location, and timing to make them worthwhile. And they're generally not interested in anything that isn't a crow, blue jay, hawk or owl.

Says Neitzel: "With all the awareness of West Nile, people are attaching a little bit more significance to every bird they find."

Two years ago, callers overwhelmed the Health Department, which had up to 10 people staffing the phones, Neitzel said. Since then, they've cut down on calls by encouraging people to file reports online.

A positive test doesn't mean the people who live nearby are in special danger, Johnson said, but clusters of dead birds may lead to stepped-up mosquito-control efforts.

Last year, West Nile was blamed for 148 human cases in Minnesota, including four deaths. That means that the chance of getting West Nile Virus in Minnesota is 3/1,000ths of 1 percent. The Minnesota West Nile Death Rate is 7/10,000ths of 1 percent.

Nationwide, almost 10,000 cases were reported, including 264 deaths.

 

 

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