Michael Zackery Zdunich

BIOL 1615

Article Title: RAPTOR MORTALITY DUE TO WEST NILE VIRUS IN THE UNITED
STATES, 2002
Emi K. Saito,1,2,3 Louis Sileo,1 D. Earl Green,1 Carol U. Meteyer,1 Grace S. McLaughlin,1
Kathryn A. Converse,1 and Douglas E. Docherty1
The West Nile Virus is a virus transmitted by mosquitoes and exploded onto the scene in
the United States and Latin America in the early 2000s. This study looked at the effects of the
virus transmitted to birds during 2002. The reason this study was done was to explain the reasons
why hundreds of thousands of dead birds that were seen in the United States since 1999. Most of
these birds later tested positive for the West Nile Virus. The growing reports of raptor deaths in
areas where the West Nile Virus was prevalent lead to the objective of this study. The aim of this
was to see if the West Nile Virus was the sole cause of this drastic increase of raptor mortality.
The most frequently reported raptors in this study was the red-tailed hawks and the great horned
owls.
The National Wildlife Health Center began conducting the study and examining these
deceased raptors in mid-August to October of 2002. The diseased raptor carcass had to be dead
for less than 24 hours in order to be qualified to be examined for the study. The examination
consisted of each raptor undergoing gross and microscopic analysis that would test for viral,
bacterial, and fungal infections in the brain, hearth, liver kidney and spleen. Tests were also done
to determine what other compounds the raptor had been exposed to such as lead and carbonate.
After these tests were ran a tissue sample from the birds various organs (brain, liver, spleen, and
heart) were examined to try and isolate the West Nile Virus from the tissues using a McNemar
Test. This is a test that was done to test for marginal homogeneity in the birds. After the initial
examinations all birds that tested positive for the virus were then split into two groups. The first
groups were birds that had tissues that showed the virus being present in them, but could not be

Michael Zackery Zdunich

BIOL 1615

supported by the histopathology examination as the sole cause of death. In the second were birds
that no West Nile Virus were isolated in the tissues, but were positive on histopathology
examination on tissues lesions suggest the virus was the cause of death.
After examinations, the National Wildlife Health Center found that the West Nile Virus
played a role in the deaths of 40 of the 56 raptors evaluated. Thirty two of the 56 birds were
adult. The West Nile Virus was isolated from 25 of the birds tissues. There were no significant
difference in the isolation rates in comparison to the different tissues tested a finding that
indicated that the viruses were evenly spread out in all tissues. After histopathologic examination
on the birds it was found that the West Nile Virus was the cause of death in 13 of the 25 birds
who had the virus. Even more alarming was that of the 31 raptors who did not have the virus
isolated from their tissues 17 of them did have histopathologic lesions suggestive of encephalitis
and/or myocarditis. Encephalitis is the inflammation of the brain caused by infection and
myocarditis is the inflammation of the heart.
In conclusion, the study was done to determine the cause of increase raptor mortality
during 2002. With the West Nile Virus being the main focus there is a possibility that the
consumption of infected prey or mosquitoes was a main caused of how this virus was transmitted
to great horned owls, crows, and other passerines and this was backed by laboratory studies.
Another conclusion that was made from this study was that the increase in the West Nile Virus
raptor cases in 2002 compared to other seasons could be due to the fact that the awareness of the
virus increased resulting in more reports. This is a relatively small sample size which could be a
possible limitation of the study. If more deceased birds were studied it would give a better
understanding if indeed the West Nile Virus was the sole cause of their deaths. With that being

Michael Zackery Zdunich

BIOL 1615

said the main take away from this study is there may be other as yet not identified diseases in
wildlife populations that adversely affect raptors.