Sent by Kevin Kenow, USGS, LaCrosse Common loon movements now online....the 'loon migration studies' site was developed by our media specialist Bob Kratt. Bob will be updating the site once or twice a week during fall migration.
Movements of five common loons that were radiomarked in Minnesota and Wisconsin this summer, can now be followed online on the Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center website Common Loon Migration page at http://www.umesc.usgs.gov/terrestrial/migratory_birds/loons/migrations.html . Ten common loons were equipped with satellite transmitters this past July to provide information on movements over the next year. The marking of common loons is part of an effort to study the migratory movements and foraging patterns of sentinel fish-eating waterbirds while migrating through the Great Lakes in association with a USGS study on avian botulism. Botulism intoxication, which causes the paralysis and death of intoxicated vertebrates, is caused by ingestion of neurotoxins produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. Periodic outbreaks of type E botulism have resulted in die-offs of fish and fish-eating birds in the Great Lakes since at least the 1960s, but outbreaks have become more common and widespread since 1999, particularly in Lakes Michigan and Erie. The satellite transmitter-marked loons, along with 68 other loons were also equipped with geolocator tags. These devices are programmed to record a daily location estimate, temperature, and pressure data to provide information on foraging depths. An understanding of feeding patterns and exposure routes of sentinel waterbird species historically at risk to botulism die-offs, such as the common loon, is central to developing ecological studies to assess pathways of botulism exposure through aquatic food chains in the Great Lakes and identification of physical and biological linkages that drive botulism outbreaks. Bob Russell, USFWS ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
