Although chickens and turkeys comprise the majority of poultry species seen by the veterinary practitioner, occasionally we also encounter waterfowl such as ducks and geese. Feature that is unique to waterfowl is that their environment usually involves the presence of man-made or natural bodies of water, and this may enhance the co-mingling of free-living waterfowl species with the domestic flo...

This study quantifies the agronomic benefits of foraging waterfowl in winter flooded rice fields in the Sacramento Valley of California (US). Fifteen winter flooded rice fields along a 105 km long transect, each with five pairs of waterfowl exclosures and control plots were used to measure residue decomposition in spring, and weed biomass and grain yield at harvest. Experimental exclusion of wa...

  Although migratory waterfowl is well known to be a major reservoir for avian influenza virus (AIV), there are only few recently published reports about the seroprevalence of AIV in this group of birds. To investigate the AIV antibody status in migratory waterfowl of Iran, we collected 217 serum samples from 25 different species of waterfowl during 2003 and 2004. These serum samples were teste...

In 2004, the Atlantic Ecology Division of the US Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development began an annual winter waterfowl survey of Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay. Herein, we explore the survey data gathered from 2004 to 2011 in order to establish a benchmark understanding of our waterfowl communities and to establish a statistical framework for future environmenta...

Coastal habitats near urban centres in North Atlantic estuaries often support substantial numbers of wintering waterfowl, but little is known of the effects of landscape setting and urbanisation on habitat use. We conducted surveys of waterfowl at 32 wintering sites in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, to identify characteristics that may influence habitat use. Sites were chosen along a gradient ...

This study investigated the impact of waterfowl on the bacteriological quality of village ponds in East Yorkshire, north-east England. Water and sediment samples were collected from ponds with and without resident ducks and geese; faecal indicator and potentially pathogenic bacteria were assayed by membrane filtration and by selective enrichment. Escherichia coli, faecal streptococci and, to a ...

In 1967, the first confirmed diagnosis of duck plague (DP) in the USA was made from pekin ducks (Anas platyrhynchos domesticus) on commercial duck farms on Long Island, New York. Within 10 mo, DP was confirmed as the cause of death in migratory waterfowl on a Long Island bay. This paper reviews 120 DP epizootics reported from 1967 to 1995 that involved waterfowl species native to North America ...

An epizootic of duck plague occurred in early 1973 in a population of 163,500 wild waterfowl, primarily mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), wintering on Lake Andes and the nearby Missouri River in southeastern South Dakota (USA). The diagnosis was based on pathologic lesions and confirmed by virus isolation. Control measures included quarantine, attempts to reduce virus contamination of the area, di...

Because of birds’ mobility, behaviour and many species’ migratory nature, they select repeatedly and spatially among habitats and have been central figures in studies of avian breeding habitat selection during the 20th and 21st centuries. The scientific literature on habitat use by breeding waterfowl has origins dating back to the writings of Charles Darwin in The Voyage of the Beagle, wherein ...

Birds of the order Anseriformes, commonly referred to as waterfowl, are frequently infected by Haemosporidia of the genera Haemoproteus, Plasmodium, and Leucocytozoon via dipteran vectors. We analyzed nucleotide sequences of the Cytochrome b (Cytb) gene from parasites of these genera detected in six species of ducks from Alaska and California, USA to characterize the genetic diversity of Haemos...