Quack Patrol

photo by Cari

Come along with the Quack Patrol!

In the hot summer months the Quack Patrol conducts almost daily checks of every wetland on Sand Island for deadly bird botulism.  If we find a dead duck, we'll collect it carefully and put it in a ziploc bag with information about where and when we found it.  Then we put the bag in a freezer until a veterinarian can examine it to find out if botulism poison really did kill the duck. 

If we find a sick bird -- good news! -- we wrap it in clean towels and take it into the US Fish and Wildlife Service lab, where the duck is cared for.  You can read more about the care of botulism-sick ducks in the July 3 post "Laysan Ducks: Battling Botulism."

As you can see in the picture, I and my bicycle are loaded down with equipment.  My binoculars, with sunglasses hooked on, are strapped across me.  In my pocket is a pencil...and even a second one, in case I lose the first one.  I'll stuff the clipboard with its data table into the bike basket. The net (for scooping dead ducks out of the water) will be stuck through the basket's handle.  My metal water bottle is already in the bike basket, along with my backpack.  The pack contains clean towels for sick birds...and ziploc bags for dead birds, which I hope we don't find!  

We're ready to ride to the first wetland, called Ball Field Big; let's go!  After seeing the 5-minute video, perhaps you'd like to check out any of these 3 FOAM Activity Pages:  

• Laysan Ducks #1 -- Bands
• Laysan Ducks #2 -- Who's Who?
• Duck Project

Bike Ride to Laysan Ducks from Barb Mayer on Vimeo.

Katie: US Fish and Wildlife Service Volunteer

It was a lot of fun having high school senior Katie on island for a week!  She helped with her mom's Hawaiian Monk Seal beach surveys.  In addition, Katie worked as a volunteer in various wildlife management projects for Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.  She helped:

• observe and record the growth stage of young Laysan Albatross and Red-tailed Tropicbirds, 
• sort and measure marine debris, 
• pull up the alien invasive plant Verbesina, and
• gather and wrap albatross boluses (albatross barf!) for classroom dissections.  (Yes; that's a real bolus she's wrapping in the right-hand picture.)

But perhaps her favorite work was checking on the health of Laysan Ducks (LADU.)

photo by Kittipong Janthasang

For the weekly all-atoll wetlands survey, Katie got very good at using binoculars to see the ducks.  With the binocs, she could often read the code on colored bands that some individual ducks wear on their legs.  [Challenge yourself to read LADU bands in FOAM's "Activity: Laysan Ducks #1 -- Bands" and Activity: Laysan Ducks #2 -- Who's Who!"]  Then Katie entered the data into an Xcel spreadsheet in the Refuge's computer.  Every morning she also helped check each of the wetlands for any ducks affected by the disease, avian botulism.

Each of us needs to help take care of the living things around us.  Katie certainly is a good steward!  How can you volunteer for plants and animals in your community?

Laysan Ducks: Battling Botulism

Adam holding sick Laysan Duck

Hi FOAM friends; this is Kahiko, and we Laysan Ducks are fighting a poisonous condition called botulism.  The sickness sometimes hits us when our seeps (ponds) get hot and low in oxygen in the summer.

Botulism (botch-uh-lih-zum) is a kind of food poisoning.  It's caused by a bacterium called Clostridium, and they love places with low oxygen, like old cans of green beans.  If you ever see a can of beans that's "outdated" (meaning: beyond the date marked on the can), DON'T EAT THE BEANS!  Clostridium bacteria make a poison that attaches to nerves.  Then the nerves can't control muscles, and people get sick.  Sometimes botulism attacks the nerves that connect to breathing muscles, and people die!

There's another species of Clostridium that causes botulism in Laysan Ducks.  Sick and even dead Ducks have been turning up on Midway.  Adam found the first sick duck at the Aviary seep.  (Click on the page for the Midway Map in FOAM's top menu bar.)  Look at the picture at the right.  Notice that the duck's eye is closed?  That's because the Clostridium is probably in the nerves for the eyelid muscles, and the duck just can't open its eye.  Adam brought the sick duck to the USFWS office where it was treated by Fish and Wildlife staff.

John Klavitter, wildlife scientist

First it was given a shot of "antitoxin," a medicine that will fight the botulism poison.  Next, John Klavitter gave the duck some food (Ensure, with lots of soy protein) and Pedialyte (electrolytes, or different kinds of salt.)  The duck was held in a small, clean towel while it was carried to the aviary, which is a cage or enclosure for birds.)  You can see  the duck peeking out of the towel with its left eye open; that's a good sign!

In the aviary, the towel became a bed for the sick duck.  Since the duck's nerves and muscles aren't healthy, the rolled towel propped up the duck's head.  Perhaps you can see the duck in its towel-nest under the "A-frame" within the aviary.  When the duck got healthy enough to eat on its own, there were bowls of water and food right next to it.

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After several days in the sick bay aviary, with daily care, the duck was healthy and ready to be released.  Ray Born carried the duck outdoors and put it into a special water area, which is more protected from sun and large albatross than the 20 wetland areas around Midway.  Good news; after several hours the duck had left the protected water area, free to travel anywhere on the island!  

(If you're interested in learning more about avian botulism, please visit the National Wildlife Health Center.)