
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 13, 1994                   TAG: 9403130102
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG                                LENGTH: Short

WIND WORSENS AVIAN CHOLERA EPIDEMIC

Wind is complicating the avian cholera epidemic on the Chesapeake Bay by keeping dead birds offshore where they can infect other birds with the highly contagious disease, officials said.

As of midday Friday, cleanup crews had picked up about 8,900 birds in Virginia since the epidemic began in late February. Maryland crews have retrieved more than 7,000 birds. About 600 have been taken from the ocean beaches of North Carolina's Outer Banks.

All three states have dispatched crews to the shore to remove the carcasses that can infect healthy birds, said Glenn Askins, a regional waterfowl manager with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

But variable winds have sloshed the dead birds back and forth in the bay without washing them to shore.

"The fresh carcasses attract other birds, which feed and drink around the carcasses, and they pick up the disease," Askins said. - Associated Press

by CNB