Suddenly, robins, bluebirds and crows have starred vanishing from the American sky and a study revealed it's the West Nile virus, which is wreaking havoc among the backyard birds.
the chickadee hit by west nile virus 9
Since West Nile's emergence in the US in 1999, the number of as many as seven bird species has dramatically gone down, according to the study which appeared in the latest issue of the journal Nature.
Marm Kilpatrick, a senior research scientist at the Consortium of Conservation Medicine in New York and also co-author of the study, said
We're seeing a serious impact.
Spread by mosquito bites, the West Nile virus has also claimed 962 human lives since 1999.
But the virus has caused more damage to bird population than human. According to Kilpatrick, hundreds of thousands of crows have succumbed to the virus and in fact the American crow is the hardest-hit species among all. Roughly, about one-third of crows have been killed by the virus.
Wesley Hochachka, assistant director of bird population studies at Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said it can well be an early warning for humans.
He said
If you start seeing crows dying and dying in numbers, that means there could be a human outbreak.
Photo: theglobeandmail.com
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