The avian cholera outbreak that killed about 25,000 eared grebes and several hundred other species of birds on the Great Salt Lake appears to be over, a Utah Division of Wildlife biologist said.
Frank Howe's agency is not seeing any fresh carcasses on the Great Salt Lake. The dead birds, which included California gulls, ducks and shorebirds, have been removed."The volunteers and state workers picked up about 15 tons of dead birds," Howe said. "We think we probably got 90 (percent) to 95 percent of all that were out there."
The cleanup, mostly conducted on the south shore, prevented spreading of the disease. Wildlife officials were concerned that scavengers such as California gulls would eat the dead birds and spread the disease.
About 700 gulls were among the dead birds picked up.
While the immediate grebe emergency is ended, efforts to discover why the birds fell victim to the disease is just beginning, Howe said.
Although avian cholera is caused by a bacteria, outbreaks of the disease are more likely in stressed birds. Wildlife officials suspect the shrunken populations of brine shrimp in the lake may be stressing the birds.
Howe said the division will collect information on weights of both the dead birds and live birds and compare them with grebe weight information collected in earlier years.
He said the division may also send some of the carcasses to the National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin for further study.
Low brine shrimp numbers in the lake caused an emergency shutdown of the brine shrimp egg harvesting season last month after only 22 days. That's not sitting well with many brine shrimpers, some of whom have questioned the accuracy of the shrimp counts.