Beverlybaynes
Mod Squad
Let's expand the chat a bit, OK?
The summer of 2002 was a tough one, with West Nile Virus exploding across North America.
I live in Allen County, in northeastern Indiana, and I think we had one of the highest infection rates, for both human and avian cases, in the country. We had 75=100 confirmed human cases, including 2 or 3 deaths, and untold numbers of avian deaths.
The most obvious signs of it, to me, were these:
1. The loss of crows. I live in a small neighborhood full of mature maple, oak, and sycamore trees, and which includes a very small wooded park. We had at least two families of crows living here, which were ALWAYS around. I haven't seen nor heard a crow since early August.
Driving home from work in the afternoons, I used to regularly see an early evening roost of crows in a wasteland area between 2 railroad underpasses. Crows would flock here, literally in the thousands. No more.
In the past month, however, I am starting to see an occasional one or two crows, mostly on the south side of town, where I work. I'm still looking for crows on the near north side, where I live (I live in a city of approximately 220,000).
2. I recently started feeding birds again in my front yard (my feeders were down for several months, because I had so many wandering cats nearby, including one who is a real sweet little girl, and who has since been taken in by my neighbor). Since putting the feeders back up, I've noticed fewer birds. Only a couple of Blue Jays, where I used to have several. Fewer Cardinals, Chickadees and Titmouses. A little of this has been offset, though, by getting Fox Sparrows and Carolina Wrens to my feeders for the first time ever.
3. This was perhaps the toughest hit of all: I volunteer for a raptor rescue organization, Soarin' Hawk, and we have several education birds. The costs of caring for the WNV-ill birds we took in this summer (mostly Red-Tailed Hawks and Great Horned Owls) and the costs of vaccinating our ed birds nearly put us out of business. We were down to less than $200 in our checking account in late August. Then our most majestic ed bird, a magnificent Golden Eagle named Sullivan, contracted WNV and died. He had been with us for about 3 years, and it was a tremendous, tremendous loss.
This, too, has been offset a bit by the fact that we conducted a special appeal to our membership and the general public for assistance. Between that, and our annual fundraising auction in November, we managed to raise nearly $10,000 in the autumn.
I'm curious, now, about WNV has affected you this year. What have you seen or experienced?
I'm also curious about how you and/or your communities coped with WNV. Local government here resorted to mosquito fogging, which I personally think accomplished nothing except to pour more chemicals in our air. Not to mention how it probably aggravated the conditions of everyone dealing with respiratory illnesses.
So, who's next? What do you have to say?
The summer of 2002 was a tough one, with West Nile Virus exploding across North America.
I live in Allen County, in northeastern Indiana, and I think we had one of the highest infection rates, for both human and avian cases, in the country. We had 75=100 confirmed human cases, including 2 or 3 deaths, and untold numbers of avian deaths.
The most obvious signs of it, to me, were these:
1. The loss of crows. I live in a small neighborhood full of mature maple, oak, and sycamore trees, and which includes a very small wooded park. We had at least two families of crows living here, which were ALWAYS around. I haven't seen nor heard a crow since early August.
Driving home from work in the afternoons, I used to regularly see an early evening roost of crows in a wasteland area between 2 railroad underpasses. Crows would flock here, literally in the thousands. No more.
In the past month, however, I am starting to see an occasional one or two crows, mostly on the south side of town, where I work. I'm still looking for crows on the near north side, where I live (I live in a city of approximately 220,000).
2. I recently started feeding birds again in my front yard (my feeders were down for several months, because I had so many wandering cats nearby, including one who is a real sweet little girl, and who has since been taken in by my neighbor). Since putting the feeders back up, I've noticed fewer birds. Only a couple of Blue Jays, where I used to have several. Fewer Cardinals, Chickadees and Titmouses. A little of this has been offset, though, by getting Fox Sparrows and Carolina Wrens to my feeders for the first time ever.
3. This was perhaps the toughest hit of all: I volunteer for a raptor rescue organization, Soarin' Hawk, and we have several education birds. The costs of caring for the WNV-ill birds we took in this summer (mostly Red-Tailed Hawks and Great Horned Owls) and the costs of vaccinating our ed birds nearly put us out of business. We were down to less than $200 in our checking account in late August. Then our most majestic ed bird, a magnificent Golden Eagle named Sullivan, contracted WNV and died. He had been with us for about 3 years, and it was a tremendous, tremendous loss.
This, too, has been offset a bit by the fact that we conducted a special appeal to our membership and the general public for assistance. Between that, and our annual fundraising auction in November, we managed to raise nearly $10,000 in the autumn.
I'm curious, now, about WNV has affected you this year. What have you seen or experienced?
I'm also curious about how you and/or your communities coped with WNV. Local government here resorted to mosquito fogging, which I personally think accomplished nothing except to pour more chemicals in our air. Not to mention how it probably aggravated the conditions of everyone dealing with respiratory illnesses.
So, who's next? What do you have to say?
