Georgia Seabird Environmental Assessment Network (GA SEANET)

Prepared by: Dr. Terry Norton, Director and Veterinarian, Georgia Sea Turtle Center and Veterinarian for St. Catherines Island Foundation and Stefanie Ouellette, Georgia Sea Turtle Center, Marine Field Programs Coordinator

Project coordinators: Dr. T. Norton and Stacia Hendricks, Lead Naturalist, Little St. Simons Island S. Hendricks, Sea Island Company

Oyster Catcher

GA SEANET is a multi-institutional program aimed at establishing a comprehensive program for marine bird health and disease surveillance in Georgia. The Georgia Sea Turtle Center (GSTC) has recently joined forces with this project and are initiating efforts on Jekyll Island to significantly expand the program in the coming years. The program will entail regular beach monitoring by GSTC staff, interns and volunteers, contribute to our veterinary student externship program experience, develop educational materials for participants and the local community and visitors to the GSTC. Dead birds found on Jekyll Island beaches will receive a complete necropsy and subsequent histopathology (microscopic evaluation of tissues), contaminant analysis on selected cases, and disease and parasite screening. These data will be part of a baseline measurement of the health of marine birds and further our understanding of trends that occur on our Georgia coast and beyond. From this, an annual report will be compiled of our beach surveillance and necropsy findings. The information will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented to the scientific and veterinary community. General public education programs will be developed (posters, brochures) and distributed with the assistance of local media (TV, radio, newspaper, schools) as a result of this work.

Project Objectives:

The objective of this project is to conduct disease and health surveillance of marine birds along the Georgia Coast.  We intend to conduct general health surveys to determine primary problems that are occurring on the Georgia coast (e.g. marine debris, infectious diseases, marine biotoxins such as red tide, domoic acid toxicity, and other marine algal toxins). Early indicators of oil spills and mass mortality events will allow us to institute emergency management more quickly. We will work to develop collaborations between veterinarians, research scientists, biologists, naturalists and educators from the Georgia coast and elsewhere, and provide educational displays/presentations at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center and potentially other nature centers on the coast.

Brief Project Description:

It is the intention of this Program to be modeled after the SEANET program in the northeast, which has been conducted for several years now. We will use the same data collection sheets and databases, gross necropsy protocols, and volunteer training guidelines. This will allow for comparisons of data and monitoring trends that occur on both the northeast and southeast coasts of the US. Please refer to the following website for more details: www.tufts.edu/vet/seanet

Training project personnel will be performed by Dr. Norton, Stacia Hendricks and others on an individual and group basis. Project personnel will be trained on safety precautions to be taken when handling live and dead marine birds (e.g. protective clothing to prevent disease transmission, handling techniques for live birds). Selected individuals will be trained for year round monitoring and coordination of the program on their respective barrier island.

Training and data collection will include beach survey techniques and data entry, bird identification techniques, morphometrics and body weight measurements, and taking standardized digital images. Health evaluations performed on birds found on the beach will include:

Gross necropsies on fresh dead or euthanized birds: Dr. Terry Norton and students
Histopathology: SCWDS-Dr. Kevin Keel
Parasitology: SCWDS personnel
Contaminant and biotoxin analysis on selected cases: Dr. Robert Poppenga, University of California at Davis, College of Veterinary Medicine
Evaluation of ill and injured live birds via physical examination, blood work, x-rays, fecal examination, laparoscopy, etc: T. Norton and selected local veterinarians.
Avian influenza: SCWDS to perform viral culture and coordinate serological testing, sample collection by T. Norton: cloacal swabs and plasma, fresh fecal samples will also be collected from known flocks of marine birds on shell rakes and the beach Health and disease surveillance of “healthy population” by remote capture may include American oystercatchers, red knots, marbled godwits, dunlin, ruddy turnstones