debilitating disorder are 10 times higher than usual. That’s higher than has ever been recorded in any wild-bird population, and most of this rise happened over the last decade. Dozens of other bird species are afflicted. Nobody knows why, but it’s probably not a good sign.

“The sudden appearance of a large cluster of animals with gross abnormalities may signal a significant change in an ecosystem,” wrote U.S. government biologists Colleen Handel and Kimberly Trust in paper published in October in The Auk.

Many possible culprits have been identified. One is environmental contamination; toxins and heavy metals have caused past beak-deformity epidemics in the Great Lakes and California. But those outbreaks occurred in clusters, while Alaska’s deformities are widespread and affect species living in different habitats, with different diets.

Bacteria, viruses, fungi or nutritional deficiencies could be responsible, wrote the researchers. More tests will be run. All that’s clear now is that something is going wrong.

Image: Ben Mitchell

See Also:

• The Pelican’s Beak: Success and Evolutionary Stasis
• Toucan Beak Is New Kind of ‘Heating Bill’
• Giant Terror Birds Used Stabbing Beaks to Kill Prey
• How Darwin’s Finches Keep Their Species Separate

Citations: “Beak Deformities in Northwestern Crows: Evidence of a Multispecies Epizootic.” By Caroline Van Hemert, Colleen M. Handel.” The Auk, Vol. 127 Issue 4, October 2010.

“Epizootic of Beak Deformities Among Wild Birds in Alaska: An Emerging Disease in North America?” By Colleen M. Handel, Lisa M. Pajot, Steven M. Matsuoka, Caroline Van Hemert, John Terenzi, Sandra L. Talbot, Daniel M. Mulcahy, Carol U. Meteyer, Kimberly A. Trust. The Auk, Vol. 127 Issue 4, October 2010.

Brandon’s Twitter stream, reportorial outtakes and citizen-funded White Nose Syndrome story; Wired Science on Twitter.

Authors: Brandon Keim

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