Avian cholera ‘could spread to Greenland’

Avian cholera could spread from parts of Canada to Greenland, where it has not been detected before, according to scientists. The bacterial disease, which is highly contagious in birds but not humans, has killed thousands of creatures in Canadian regions of the eastern Arctic since 2004, despite usually only being found in southern parts of North America.

“We’re perplexed [with] how it spreads and how it is persisting,” Grant Gilchrist, a research scientist with Environment Canada, told CBC News. He added that most of the deaths had been seen among common eider ducks in Canada.

Inuit communities in both countries have been helping scientist monitor the disease and have found the number of cases fluctuating over the years.

“It may disappear entirely for a while and then, in the future for unknown reasons, it rears its ugly head again,” said Gilchrist. “This is a very, very contagious disease, and so there’s a strong risk that eiders that carry the disease that might be originating from Canada could overwinter in the same places in the west coast of Greenland. The disease has the potential, we think, to jump into the breeding population of Greenland as well,” he added.

Flemming Merkel works as a researchers for the National Environmental Research Institute in Denmark and has been working with people in Greenland to monitor bird colonies.

“There’s a large exchange of birds between Canada and Greenland, and a large part of the Canadian breeding birds come to Greenland in the winter. So throughout the winter, they are more or less in the same area,” Merkel said.