Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 17:39:05 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Paul O'Brien Subject: West Nile ? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ospreyers, There is a disturbing letter to the editor in the current (Feb. 7) issue of Science (Vol. 299, page 821) having to do with migratory birds and the spread of West Nile Virus. The authors note: "It is particularly ominous that our observations of scores of species of small northern migrants (e.g. warblers and thrushes) this January in the Area de Conservacion Guanacaste in northwestern Costa Rica (see www.acguanacaste.ac.cr) suggest that there is a precipitous decline in their abundance compared with previous years." The authors go on to say: "This apparent decline in Costa Rica could well be due to fewer migrants arriving, virus-based death in transit or on the wintering grounds, or even disproportionately harsh predation by resident predators accustomed to preying on abundant migrants." The authors research (see http://brooksweb.zoo.utoronto.ca) should in time reveal the presence of the virus, if it is indeed in Costa Rica (there are no recorded cases up to now), but only future years will tell whether the decline is permanent. Ominous indeed. Paul O'Brien Rockville, Mont. Co., MD pobrien776@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================