Very strange. A decade ago the focus would be on the high concentration of pollutants in the birds, caused by pollution elsewhere in their environments.

Yes, it must be the birds' faults. The ground and waters are covered with bird droppings, messing up the waste generated by all other sources.

maybe they can hire some minutemen to take care of the problem, eliminate the skyrats.

There's been quite alot of press in recent years about birds spreading disease too (ie. West Nile, Asian flu). Maybe its about time we did something about the feathered terrorists within our midst, the underground cells in the mulberry bush!

What would motivate them, on their semiannual, transnational migrations through porous borders, delivering chemical and biological antipersonnel agents to remote geographical locations? They probably hate us because of our freedom.

HOOT! Those are good ones. If it wasn't for the liver-living liberals among us, we wouldn't have coddled the avian evil empire by reconstructing wetlands and encouraging backyard feeders. Down with Audubon!

KT are you referring to the mulberries that were tested positive for plutonium as did dear and mice scat near the Hanford NR? The good news is that a safety panel is to be created. Its scarrey how vulnerable those birds really are to everything in "their" ecosystem, too.

Althea, lol yes, it may be antianimal and antiplant as well.

liver-living liberals?! not sure where that one came from, but affects of damming and smaller glaciers are culprits in riverways and wetlands being starved. Migrational patterns are instinctual and ironicly for survival reasons. :(

Here is a link that might be useful: chemical reservior may be leaking

Lilyrose, how true. There was a good reason miners in the old days took canaries into the mines to give them early warning of toxic gas.

Smooth hijack, Lrv!

Speaking of anti-animal, did you see this other article linked on the sidebar of your link?

"Swimming off limits at two local beaches

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF

Matthews Beach Park and Gene Coulon Memorial Beach Park on Lake Washington have been closed to swimmers because of high levels of a bacteria from animal feces. Public health officials will continue testing the waters daily, but they must test at normal levels for five days before the beaches can be reopened. For more information, go to dnr.metrokc.gov/wlr/waterres/swimbeach/default.aspx.";

You're right, the animals have joined the Avian Empire with their own contributions to germ warfare being waged against us.

thanks Althea, I hope not to offend with my hijacking...

As for the water quality Here on Mount Desert Island we have had some of our beaches last year closed for high fecal content as well, but it usually happens after heavy rain periods. ( Perhaps the snow is a vehicle as well for fecal distribution. I myself wonder how many of the older homes and their septic systems are upgraded into leech feilds with septic systems rather than the pipe out to the bay that may still be used in the older parts of this country, ponds,lakes, streams, bays, and etc.,.

Testing is rather new on our island, but history goes back to a time when typhoid and scarletina (spelling?)was found in drinking water at local hotels in the 1800's. Since that outbreak the use of chlorine gas and a selected clean lake as a water supply source is being used.

The lake that provide town drinking waters to Bar Harbor is limited use such as canoeing and fishing, but no swimming and one would never see those jet bikes on them. The lake is surrounded by national forrest, so little development is there.

None the less there has been high levels of mercury detected in one of our deepest lakes on the island ( not a supply of drinking water) believed from the acid rains and some argue from the pine trees ( occuring naturally...what ever that means?!).

Here is a link that might be useful: testing for optical brightners

lrv,
I wonder where all that mercury in coal is coming from. Perhaps the plants uptaked it....maybe pines could???

Some believe that maine is the tail pipe of the country for industrial air movement... while others claim that pine has a natural occuring mercury in it that is organic in nature.
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev29-12/text/environ.htm#trees

Mercury Deposition: Fish with high levels of mercury, a potent toxin, have been documented in Acadia's lakes since the early 1990s. The park has monitored mercury deposition since 1996. Mercury concentrations in some species of warm-water fish (such as bass, perch, and pickerel) at Acadia are among the highest in the United States. *snip* http://www.npca.org/across_the_nation/visitor_experience/code_red/fact_sheets/acadia.asp

the link below is not about Maine but explains how pine trees obsorb and release mercury into the environment.

Here is a link that might be useful: mercury threat to the pinelands

Althea; Perhaps the article heading was intentionally worded as a means of easing Reuter's audience into a contemplating a delicate,complex issue.At least there is some effort in revisiting some rendition of food chain theory without complicating the issue of noting peculiar uptake and hyperaccumulation of toxins by specific (aquatic) plants....
Maybe there is at least a suggestion of body burdens of another organism (through its tenuous developmental stages...)other than fish (or humans) as it is all to easy just to post a sign stating "No Fishing" and be done with it. How a stressed organism plays its life out in the web of life and its potential cascading effect on human health is an interesting issue....

I agree in part Pickwick. It is a complex chain from the pollution source to end destination. This at least highlights another previously unknown path. I thought Marshall made a good point that the birds used to be a primary focus. I'm guessing since humans living in remote areas have been shown to have high levels of contaminants in their bodies, the research has shifted to understanding the various means of toxic movement, ultimately focused on lessening human exposure.

I will never buy seabird guano fertilizer.

This editorial in my local paper today captures my thoughts on the issue. The editor read national and int'l reports and all were slanted toward the Reuters p.o.v..

-----
Editorial: Tainted Arctic/Birds are hardly to blame
July 22, 2005 ED0722A

Perhaps the doo-doo jokes were inevitable when the media reported on Canadian researchers' discovery that migrating seabirds, via their droppings, were transporting industrial pollutants around the high Arctic. It's harder to understand the careless conclusion that the birds were in some way responsible for the contamination.

American papers tended toward the simple birds-are-to-blame angle, describing their function in terms such as "trafficking." An Irish journalist, unencumbered by logic, wrote that the findings "will come as a shock to the guilt-ridden who blame us humans for putting the planet in jeopardy by damaging the polar environment. Though long condemned, as a matter of course, for the fouling of the Arctic, we have been found not guilty."

Amazing. As if the birds were synthesizing PCBs in their gizzards, or going out of their way to forage on foods rich in DDT.

For years, scientists have been pointing to the presence of these and other long-lived industrial chemicals in the high Arctic as a reminder that no part of this planet is beyond the reach of man's relentless fouling of air and water. More recently, researchers have found disturbing levels of toxic compounds in the people who inhabit these regions.

Indeed, human exposure to mercury and PCBs is now higher in some Arctic regions than most other places on Earth. Partly this is because the deep cold slows the processes of chemical breakdown, enhancing the persistence of long-lived pollutants that have drifted north from the world's industrial centers. Partly it's because the Arctic diets are high in fat, where the worst toxins accumulate.

The role of the seabirds -- northern fulmars, akin to petrels -- is not so much to introduce these nasty substances as to concentrate them and move them along in the food web. Migrating over hundreds of miles, they feed on marine life, from plankton to squid to fish, that has absorbed contaminants carried north by wind and water. Their guano becomes rich in these pollutants, which are then redeposited in Arctic soils, waters and wildlife -- whales and seals, for example, which then become food for humans.

In ponds near large fulmar colonies examined by a University of Ottawa team, this "boomerang effect" had produced concentrations of DDT, PCBs, mercury and other toxins that were 60 times higher than Arctic regions without large seabird populations. In some places, researchers said, contamination is approaching levels at which the Canadian government might ban fishing to protect human health. Pretty funny, isn't it?

The export of environmental poisons to these otherwise pristine regions is a tragedy, not a joke. And the blame belongs to just one species, unique in its abilities to prevent such harm -- and also, alas, in its preference to duck the responsibility for doing so.
-----
(http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5519511.html)

Excellent commentary. How we humans can rationalize and re-direct.

The current issue of Foreign Affairs has the Next Pandemic as the issue's main topic. I think Nature also has artlicles on the same topic.

Wild waterfowl have been the main carriers of flu viruses thourghout time. The 1918 Spanish flu was spread across the globe by waterfowl. And of course WW1 at the time just gave it more victems. The current concern is that the avian flu may get into the wild waterfowl population. That would be a disaster if the virus mutated and was able to bo be transmitted human to human.

Interesting reading after a dinner of roast goose.
Tom

The Russians just reported the deaths of Siberian water fowl from the same strain of avian flu striking fowl and people in SE Asia. The Russians are worried about a pandemic too.

...yes,Marshall.I've been following this topic privately. I might suggest that this topic deserves special considerations. I suggest that any reference material other than peer reviewed sources should be gauged appropriately and privately.Any mishandling( taking quotes out of context,misinterpretations of journal references.ect...)may yield an unfortunate situation for a careless poster...

And these referreed articles are where, Pickwick?

goodness,Marshall;You can't be serious.

Well, I take your cautionary message to heart and look forward to linking to the appropriate materials you recommend.

Along this line...peer reviewed articles........I find that can be a mixed bag.

Some alternative health sources of information have said that you can get the info now or wait 10 years for "the establishment" to be pulled dragging their feet to what you can learn now. Now I do not condone sloppy or profiteer marketing. I like to have reliable sources of news and reliable sources of nutrients to supplement with.

Too often the media put out a sound bite/byte and it gets puppeted for years and hurts "sound science". Ultimately truth will come out and ultimately truth will prevail. The point here is that I want to be able to hear from multiple sources and judge, weigh, and compare in the search for truth.

greetings,Marshall;
The cautionary statement was meant for myself...The anxiety I'm feeling at the moment suggesting a portal to peer reviewed journal articles is the fact that many of us (myself included),simply do not have this particular background to integrate what we (at the moment)are privileged to read online into a proper contextual view... and then make an attempt to translate what we think we have learned into a public forum.It doesn't necessarily mean that an attempt shouldn't be made...but I think it should be a personal and private undertaking particularly with this volatile subject
Citing specific articles doesn't seem to be a worthwile approach here because it is rather an ongoing process,a temporal unfolding of events... I am more interested in trends,Wayne. I wish to have a sense of authoritative reference points and go from there...
Might I suggest the highwire search engine(http://highwire.standford.edu/).Hits will occur beyond the first page, then try using the search engine of a particular journal to view full text articles...Abstracts should be weighed differently (of course)....One's local library may have access to more information (i.e.the Journal Science).
Some general references:"Are Viruses Alive";Luis P.Villarreal,Director of the Center of Virus Research at UCal.Irvine; Scientific American; December,2004;
The Peer Reviewed PLoS open access Biology site:google "PLoS Biology";
the CDC and WHO sites
hope this helps...be careful

Thank you for the references. I am a long-time subscriber to Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Science, and some other technical and popular science journals, mags, newsletters, and web resources. With the rising costs of most scientific journals and review publications, I must rely on abstracts. The research library at the Institute with whom I'm affiliated would bring in material via interlibrary loan, but overall its specialties are physchology and mythology, not the hard sciences.