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[Gail Wieberdink]

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        Are Lake Superior's loons next?
        Tom Meersman, Star Tribune


        The loon, an icon of the north and Minnesota's state bird, is dying
by the thousands across a growing swath of the Great Lakes, victims of a
bacterial disease that works its way up from the lake floor.

        First noticed in the eastern portion of the Great Lakes chain eight
years ago, death is now spreading west. So far, loons have not suffered
die-offs in Lake Superior, but officials are concerned about the potential
in Duluth-Superior harbor.

        "You begin to wonder year after year how much that population can
withstand if you're losing large numbers of adult birds," said Helen Domske,
extension specialist for the New York Sea Grant.

        This year the area of dead birds has spread to hundreds of miles of
pristine Lake Michigan shoreline. Last month, so many dead loons and other
birds washed up on the shores of a Pennsylvania state park that officials
used a local funeral home to incinerate them.

        "Loons are such a beautiful bird, and to see a hundred of them
laying on the beach, it just really disturbs people," said Harry Leslie,
operations manager at Presque Island State Park near Erie, Pa.

        As popular as loons are, Domske said, no one knows how large their
populations are in northern Canada or how many have died during the past
several years.

        Thousands may expire on the lakes and sink, she said, and others
wash up in remote areas or along Canadian shores and are never counted. From
those that are collected and bagged, said Domske, it's clear that Michigan,
Ontario, New York and Pennsylvania have all had substantial die-offs this
year.

        Scientists believe that the birds are killed by Type E botulism that
works its way up the food chain from the bottom of the lake. There,
naturally occurring botulism spores germinate and grow into toxin-producing
bacterial cells. Those bacteria move into quagga mussels as they filter the
water.

        Then a small fish called a round goby picks up the bacteria by
eating the mussels.

        When loons, long-tailed ducks, gulls, grebes and other birds eat the
infected fish, the toxin enters their systems, paralyzing the birds. Within
hours they can no longer fly or hold their necks up, and they drown.

        A murderous migration

        The adult loons spend the summer in northern border states and
Canada and migrate across the Great Lakes in October and November.

        Mark Breederland, Michigan Sea Grant extension educator, said that
200 loons were among 2,900 dead birds picked up last year along 11 miles of
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. This year, more than twice that
number have been found in the area and farther north, with reports of
additional deaths spread across much of Lake Michigan's northern shoreline.
"This really has people worked up."

        Joe Kaplan, a biologist and co-director of the nonprofit Common
Coast Research and Conservation, said that volunteers canvassed 95 miles of
northern Lake Michigan beach between late October and Nov. 18 and counted
2,092 dead birds, including 517 loons.

        The organization monitors banded loons in the Upper Peninsula,
Kaplan said, and 97 percent of them typically return to their breeding
territories each spring. "We'll be keeping an eye on the rate at which adult
birds return next year," he said.

        Kaplan is also concerned about foxes, coyotes, eagles and other
wildlife that scavenge the decomposing birds and in some cases have been
found dead near them.

        Looking at various suspects

        Because neither quagga mussels nor round gobies are native to the
Great Lakes, the problem has been described as another unseen threat from
invasive species.

        Researchers are also studying whether higher lake temperatures and
lower water levels in recent years may be stimulating more plant growth,
thereby increasing the amount of bacteria on lake bottoms as the plants die,
sink and decompose.

        Amy McMillan, who teaches biology and researches population genetics
of loons at Buffalo State College, said she and others have watched the bird
die-offs spread through four of the five Great Lakes. "All of these lakes
are such major flyways for migratory birds, among the largest in the world,"
she said. "That's very frightening."

        The area near Duluth is also a major flyway, but so far there have
been no reports of die-offs in loons or other birds, said Doug Jensen,
aquatic invasive species coordinator for the Minnesota Sea Grant program.
"It's very much a concern, and we're keeping a watchful eye," he said.

        The Duluth-Superior harbor contains zebra and quagga mussels as well
as round gobies, he said.

        "There is no reason to believe that Duluth-Superior harbor would be
immune to Type E botulism," Jensen said.

        Tom Meersman . 612-673-7388

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