Dead Waterfowl around Bighorn River

Be interesting to see how bad it is this year. I know 4years or so ago we literally saw thousands of Snow Geese dead in ND while hunting in the spring.
 
Thing about this is it happens every year. Especially with the huge gathering of snow geese. I remember 20 years ago a huge die off around watertown sd growing up. The news has just found out about it and with the covid thing every one is hyper sensitive to the next pandemic. They need to find a better way to handle it in domestic birds than just kill them all.
 
I hunted snow geese in Idaho last weekend and the guide said they picked up like 400 dead birds a few weeks prior. We saw no ill birds when we were there (that I noticed) Guy said that birds with the flu stop flying and it’s quite obvious. True enough?
 
I hunted snow geese in Idaho last weekend and the guide said they picked up like 400 dead birds a few weeks prior. We saw no ill birds when we were there (that I noticed) Guy said that birds with the flu stop flying and it’s quite obvious. True enough?
Ya you can pick them out real easy. They look drunk how they wobble around when they are sick. Some will just fall out of the air and hit the ground. Two springs ago i was out side with my dog for lunch in the spring as the geese were migrating over my house on a blue bird day they were way up there. Out of no where this goose just drops out of the sky and landed two hundred yards or so from us. Dog marked it i sent him and fired that thing in a bag and then the dumpster. Talk about a perfect little impromptu training.

I wonder if eagles are not affected by it i watched them the last real bad year eat the hell out of dead birds but never saw any dead eagles.
 
Ya you can pick them out real easy. They look drunk how they wobble around when they are sick. Some will just fall out of the air and hit the ground. Two springs ago i was out side with my dog for lunch in the spring as the geese were migrating over my house on a blue bird day they were way up there. Out of no where this goose just drops out of the sky and landed two hundred yards or so from us. Dog marked it i sent him and fired that thing in a bag and then the dumpster. Talk about a perfect little impromptu training.

I wonder if eagles are not affected by it i watched them the last real bad year eat the hell out of dead birds but never saw any dead eagles.

Exactly what the guide said. They would stumble around and look completely plastered.

As an aside watching thousands of snow geese at altitude getting hit by morning sun in a clear blue sky is a lovely sight.
 
I saw more dead snow geese this waterfowl season (24-25) by an order of magnitude likely to avian flu. This is an area that roosts tens of thousands of snow geese nightly and I have a few decades of experience in. Normally you might see 1 or 2 dead snow geese per day but this year we might see 30 per day.

This is the same disease driving up egg prices and it’s currently out breaking at generational high levels.

It seems to hit geese worse than ducks from just a visibility standpoint. I’m not sure if thats the case statistically or if it ties more into flock size.
 
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