Mystery illness grounds more birds

Newport Beach Animal Control workers have found five more birds afflicted with a mysterious illness that has killed several of them and has local experts stumped.

Calls began coming into Huntington Beach’s Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center late last week that scores of cormorants and pelicans were dead or dying along Newport Beach’s coast, said Debbie McGuire, the care center’s director.

More than a dozen birds were brought to the center Friday, and another five over the weekend, McGuire said.

About half of them died or had to be euthanized, she said.

Over the weekend care center staff sent blood samples to USC to test for domoic acid poisoning, which is caused by algae blooms. McGuire said the birds’ symptoms don’t resemble that, and if any of the birds did suffer domoic acid poisoning, it was likely only a secondary cause.

Birds have come into the care center with blistered, swollen feet with spots of dead tissue, she said. Some even resemble frostbite she attributed to the local cold spell in Orange County.

Other birds have come in with respiratory infections limited to their upper throats. When the birds’ lungs are examined, they’re clean. But the area near the top of the throat is congested, McGuire said.

Workers have also sent tissue samples of pelican pouches and feet with lesions, and portions of major organs, including the brain, spleen, liver and kidney to the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory at UC Davis.

Huntington Beach pelicans and cormorants face a similar unsolved ailment. McGuire said more than a dozen birds have fallen sick or died there as well.

McGuire and care center experts expected to hear whether it’s domoic acid poisoning today.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at [email protected].