Nearly three dozen dead ducks have been found at Ellis Lake in
Marysville in the past week.
Krysta Rogers with California Department of Fish and Game says
there are a couple of possible causes of death, including Avian
Botulism.
ROGERSL: "In situations where the birds are being fed bread, those types of things that the birds don't really process, they just, it just goes basically right through them, it provides a good substrate for the bacterial growth.
Rogers says another possibility is that a bird infected with
cholera could have started a chain reaction.
A couple of samples will be sent to the California Animal
Health and Safety lab at UC Davis so that researchers can identify
a cause of death.
Rogers says these types of mass bird deaths are usually larger
in natural bodies of water compared to man-made lakes like
Marysville's Ellis Lake.