Coral Harbour (July 31/06) - Avian cholera is taking a deadly toll on a common eider duck colony on Southampton Island near Coral Harbour.

About 1,500 eiders have been reported dead on the island, which has a nesting population of about 4,000.

A Canadian Wildlife Service member measures the beak of an eider duck for research purposes.

Scientist Grant Gilchrist of the Canadian Wildlife Service said avian cholera is rare in the North.

He said the outbreak has been especially fatal to the female eiders.

"The hens sit on their eggs in nests, which puts them in close proximity to each other on the same ponds where the disease is being spread," said Gilchrist.

"Male eiders leave the island a few days after reproducing with the females.

"Eiders are long-lived and have low rates of reproduction, so the outbreak could have serious consequences for this colony."

The outbreak is still fairly isolated and has yet to spread across Nunavut, Gilchrist said.

The wildlife service is working with people in a number of communities to try and track where cholera has occurred. "It's been more hot spots than a sweeping epidemic across the territory."

One of the worst hot spots is near Coral Harbour, home to one of the largest colonies in the country, he said.

Other birds at risk of contracting the disease by feeding on dead eiders are glaucous and herring gulls, the raven and jaeger.

Avian cholera is very different than avian flu and cannot be passed onto humans.

However, Gilchrist strongly cautions against the consumption of any bird that may have been afflicted with the disease.

"If, by accident, someone ate one, we're not worried about the disease being transmitted to them.

"But it's never a good practice for humans to eat sick animals or birds. Most of the birds will be dead before the fall migration, so they're not a huge risk for human consumption."

Gilchrist said a wildlife service crew has counted about 350 herring gulls and 30 glaucous gulls eating dead carcasses on the island.

"Can you imagine an island that small covered with that many dead and scavenging birds? It's a pretty gruesome sight with about one-third the eider colony dead."

The eider is one of the most heavily harvested sea birds in the Arctic, hunted for its meat and eggs.

Gilchrist said the wildlife service hopes to see a colony immunity build up among survivors of the outbreak.

He said the same principals seen in other forms of wildlife dealing with an epidemic should apply to eider ducks, but they haven't been studied in great enough detail to know for sure.

"We'll probably never know what introduced the disease, but we expect the birds that survive to build up an immunity and repopulate."

The chances of their offspring developing an immunity to the disease is good, he said.

"It's almost analogous to the common cold being brought to Inuit in the North about 150 years ago and it killing people before they could build up their resistance."