Hi Caitlin,

I'm slowly getting caught up on e-mail and came across your request for information about bird diseases.  I don't know if anyone has responded to your request yet, but I thought I'd send a long some information that might be helpful.

One of the first resources that comes to mind is put out by the USGS and is titled "Field Manual of Wildlife Diseases: General Field Procedures and Diseases of Birds".  You can download the manual, or just sections of the manual, in pdf format via the following web-site:

http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/field_manual/

A newer, but similar resource that has recently been published by Blackwell Publishing is titled "Infectious Diseases of Wild Birds."  You can learn more about that here:

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/book.asp?ref=9780813828121&site=1

I'm guessing though that your zoo vet would have access to a wide variety of resources on zoo and captive avian medicine as well as connections to other zoos and veterinarians who might have knowledge about this as well.

This web-site is probably a good place to get started: http://www.aza.org/AnMgt/AnimalHealth/

I hope this helps and I hope things have improved since your initial request.

Good luck!

Casey

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Date:         Mon, 16 Jul 2007 17:19:18 -0400
Reply-To:     "Zematis, Caitlin Marie" <[log in to unmask]>
Sender:       "MU Ornithology Listserv (ZOO 408)" <[log in to unmask]>
From:         "Zematis, Caitlin Marie" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      anyone know about bird diseases?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Right now I am interning at a zoo and we have had no luck with birds over the summer.  Recently though we have had quite a few unexplained deaths.  Last weekend, three days after 3  Spectacled Eiders hatched, they were all found dead and seemingly unharmed as well as a male adult Eider.  The adult was found to have Asper but we don't know about the young.  Yesterday a female adult Ringed Teal died from unexplained causes although it looked as though she had something that was affecting her neurologically just a day before she died.  Today one of our 5 Trumpeter Swan hatchlings (they are about a month old) died and seemed to have neurological damage noticed yesterday and today another young is showing the same problems.  All of these birds are in seperate areas of the zoo but I am wondering if they could be affected by the same thing.  We gave the rest of the Trumpeters (including adults) a vaccine for Asper and West Nile today hoping that it might be one of those and will help.  I don't know if anyone has any ideas of what else it could be but if you do, any advice would be great help.
Caitlin