Hundreds of native pelicans have dropped death at a highly significant wildlife wetland, with authorities left scrambling to explain what killed them.<\/p>\n
Wetland Revival Trust Ecologist Damien Cook made the shocking discovery at Lake Cawndilla in NSW, which is part of the Darling River\u2019s Menindee Lakes system near Broken Hill, earlier this month.<\/p>\n
The area is an important bird and fish habitat in the Kingchega National Park that attracts rare waterbirds such as brolgas, water fowls, freckled and blue-billed ducks, about 1070km west of Sydney, according to the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.<\/p>\n
Mr Cook said he was \u201cpretty shocked\u201d to find 400 dead pelicans at the lake.<\/p>\n
Investigations have ruled out H5 bird flu as the cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t come back as bird flu, but I think it\u2019s quite hard to get a positive identification if the birds have been dead for a while,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBird flu or not, it was still pretty shocking to find there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Cook said authorities were trying to determine a cause of death, but it was not unusual for pelicans and other rookeries to die in large numbers when their food sources ran out.<\/p>\n
He said when parents could not feed their chicks through fledging, younger birds could not fly off with their parents and perished.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat sometimes happens at Lake Eyre, and it happened last year at Cawndilla, but it didn\u2019t seem to be the case because there was still lots of healthy pelicans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were young pelicans that had just made it through and were obviously fledged and hanging out with the adults, and there were still lots of other lots of other fish-eating birds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI even found a few, little fish called bony bream in in the lake there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Cook said Lake Cawndilla was fairly remote so it was unlikely the pelicans died from pollution or toxins.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps another disease, although other birds at the wetland seemed healthy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer Rhys Powell said the cause of death would be investigated over the next fortnight.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome tests have a very long lead time and botulism is one of those where it can take three to four weeks to get a diagnosis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll arrange for a local veterinarian to go out and conduct some post-mortems and look inside the animals, just to see if there\u2019s any markers of disease.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of native pelicans have dropped death at a highly significant wildlife wetland, with authorities left scrambling to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[106624,106661,106635,65405,69779,47330,106664,106656,106638,106668,106665,47846,106643,106641,106655,106618,106675,22,21,43100,30140,106626,106644,33474,106672,106648,106659,2717,29487,106629,3957,27747,106633,106667,106630,30252,106627,46269,106632,31999,106622,38447,106620,38992,106662,68133,34229,106642,379,596,106621,106634,106674,106619,106645,5264,3121,34615,106639,106658,106651,43710,106673,106647,106640,106657,247,81074,106654,106669,36697,37275,106649,106653,44123,106637,106623,106660,106646,106663,106650,106652,106625,37872,106670,106666,106671,106631,106628,106636],"class_list":["post-73936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-s-menindee-lakes-system","tag-400-dead-pelicans","tag-400-native-aussie-birds","tag-a-cause","tag-a-diagnosis","tag-a-few","tag-a-highly-significant-wildlife-wetland","tag-a-local-veterinarian","tag-a-positive-identification","tag-a-protected-nsw-wetland","tag-a-very-long-lead-time-and-botulism","tag-a-while","tag-about-1070km","tag-an-ecologist","tag-an-important-bird-and-fish-habitat","tag-another-disease","tag-any-markers","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-authorities","tag-bird-flu","tag-blue-billed-ducks","tag-bony-bream","tag-broken-hill","tag-brolgas","tag-cawndilla","tag-dead-pelicans","tag-death","tag-department","tag-deputy-chief-veterinary-officer-rhys-powell","tag-disease","tag-dpird","tag-earlier-this-month-the-area","tag-fledging","tag-freckled","tag-h5-bird-flu","tag-healthy-pelicans","tag-hundreds","tag-lake-cawndilla","tag-lake-eyre","tag-large-numbers","tag-last-year","tag-little-fish","tag-lots","tag-mass-death","tag-mr-cook","tag-mystery","tag-native-pelicans","tag-newswire-news","tag-nsw","tag-other-birds","tag-other-fish-eating-birds","tag-other-lots","tag-other-rookeries","tag-out-he","tag-parents","tag-part","tag-pelicans","tag-pollution-or-toxins","tag-primary-industries","tag-rare-waterbirds","tag-shock","tag-shocking-scenes","tag-significant-and-remote-nsw-wetland","tag-some-post-mortems","tag-some-tests","tag-sydney","tag-the-adults","tag-the-animals","tag-the-birds","tag-the-case","tag-the-cause","tag-the-darling-river","tag-the-kingchega-national-park","tag-the-lake","tag-the-lake-investigations","tag-the-next-fortnight","tag-the-nsw-national-parks","tag-the-pelicans","tag-the-shocking-discovery","tag-the-wetland","tag-their-chicks","tag-their-food-sources","tag-their-parents","tag-three-to-four-weeks","tag-water-fowls","tag-wetland-revival-trust-ecologist-damien-cook","tag-wildlife-service-mr-cook","tag-young-pelicans","tag-younger-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}