Earlier this month, we reported on wildlife advocates’ advice to temporarily remove your bird feeder to save birds’ lives, because current crowding can spread potentially deadly salmonellosis among them. On Tuesday, Seattle Audubon hosted a state expert ta talk about the problem; the video is above. If you’re concerned about the birds, it’s worth watching. Thanks to Kersti Muul of Salish Wildlife Watch, also a longtime bird steward, for letting us know!
I took my feeders down when the first story was on the blog. Just this morning I was wondering if it was safe to put them out again.Thanks WSBlog !
Noticed a dead song bird same as imaged while out walking on street…was wondering if related.
I’ve been wondering! Thank you for the info. Our kitty got sick from this. She was picking up the poor birdies bodies and bringing them to us. My boyfriend and I had a weekend of bad stomachs after this happened, then read about the epidemic when WSB posted that evening. We ended up calling West Seattle animal hospital and letting them know about the epidemic, along with advice for the furchild. Hope this passes fast, poor wildlife.
I noticed a dead one in my yard last week. My neighbor has multiple bird feeders next to our shared fence.
Dangerous? That’s a rather extreme characterization of unhealthy feeder conditions potentially harmful to wildlife. Also, the mixed message of eliminating feeders and baths versus keeping them sanitized is not a helpful ambivalence. I have a very active feeder, suet feeder, and bird bath that require daily maintenance. I have seen no sick birds around my feeders, having been more observant since first hearing of this current malady, here on the WSB. There is very little new information provided by this rambling, 45 minute video. Take down or sanitize? Decide for yourself. Draw your own conclusions. And, as in everything, keep it clean.
If potentially putting birds at risk of a deadly disease doesn’t qualify for “dangerous,” what does? Anyway, for anyone who doesn’t have time to watch the video, here’s an Audubon post published since our previous story:
https://seattleaudubon.org/2021/01/20/seattle-audubon-supports-wdfw-guidance-to-limit-the-spread-of-salmonellosis/
It is dangerous and hazardous to birds, pets and humans alike. Our cat spent 3 days in the hospital (and thousands of dollars spent) with song bird fever after coming into contact with a siskin. Your comment speaks to the entitled behavior of the ‘desire’ to watch birds, versus doing what is recommended and actually helping them. Just because you don’t see any sick or dead birds doesn’t mean they aren’t around. Insulting the video and the time Chris Anderson took to help people understand the severity of this problem, is not appreciated. Many, many people had a lot of questions about this and that is why I requested the recording for people who couldn’t join, or missed it. If it’s repeat information for you, scroll along and keep doing you.
Thank you Kersti, and I hope your cat is doing much better. Ours is better, and she hasn’t brought us any birds for almost 2 weeks, so I hope this is over for our furbabies. And great advice above ;)
Is there a text summary of this information available anywhere?There is a lot of information presented here, and the audio is not very good, so some of the information isn’t clear, particularly dates, recipes, bird species, etc.And it would be nice to have a clickable text version as a source of all the links and websites mentioned in the video.
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