Geese deaths remain a mystery

Reports of the deaths of a handful of Canada geese has drawn attention from the Nevada Department of Wildlife, but the cause of their deaths remains a mystery.

“A state game warden told me that over the last couple of weeks, we have received at least three separate reports of dead or dying geese at Mountain View Park Pond, Mitch Park Pond, and Seeman’s Pond,” Wildlife Spokeswoman Ashley Zeme said on Thursday. “The exact cause of death is unknown because we haven’t been able to locate any of the dead geese.”

Gardnerville resident Twain Berg alerted The Record-Courier to the deaths on Nov. 29

“This Friday afternoon, we observed seven dead and dying Canada geese on Mountain View Pond along the Martin Slough Trail,” he said. “(I’ve) never seen this in 38 years here.”

The next day, there wasn’t any sign of carcasses and on Monday, Gardnerville workers, upon learning of the report, did a search of the area around the pond, finding only a pile of feathers.

“We know of two other dead geese in the last year,” Town Manager Erik Nilssen said on Dec. 2. “One appeared to have a broken neck (sometimes while taking off or landing they run into each other) and one was placed by the trash can off Snaffle Bit Drive by someone other than a town employee.”

He said that town workers are checking the pond regularly.

 “Town staff are in the vicinity most days and have not seen any additional dead geese over the last year plus,” Nilssen said. “We had a board member walk the pond the prior two mornings, who didn’t see anything.”

Berg said he hasn’t seen any other dead geese on the pond, either.

Without a carcass to examine, there isn’t any way to know what was affecting the geese.

One possibility is avian flu, which struck geese in California ponds last winter.

The Nevada Department of Wildlife said they haven’t received any reports of the virus in geese, but that doesn’t rule it out.

“Avian flu continues to circulate in the U.S. including here in Nevada, so we do expect small die-offs to happen,” Zeme said. “We encourage the public to report die-offs.”

Residents can email ndowinfo@ndow.org or call 775-688-1500 to report more than three dead birds, whether they are geese or not.

Nilssen said people walking or fishing on the pond typically contact the town with issues about the pond and that’s something the U.S. Department of Fish and Game encourages.

It has been a year since the California Department of Fish and Wildlife reported that several geese found dead in Sacramento County tested positive for the avian flu.

“This strain of Eurasian HPAI H5N1 has been circulating in the United States and Canada since the winter of 2021-22, arriving in California in mid-July 2022,” according to California wildlife officials. “In total, 354 confirmed detections of the virus were made in wild birds collected from 44 California counties during mortality surveillance conducted between July 2022 and June 2023.”

Cases tend to increase during the fall migration.

The disease spreads through direct bird-to-bird contact or through contaminated surfaces.

The flu can spread to people, according to the California Department of Public Health, which identified a possible mild case in an Alameda County child.

“Human infections with bird flu viruses are rare and no person-to-person spread has been detected in California or the United States,” said Alpine County Public Health Officer Dr. Richard O. Johnson on Nov. 19.

The Nevada Department of Agriculture received evidence of a detection of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in dairy cattle in Nye County.

On Dec. 6, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued a new federal order regarding the testing and surveillance for the H5N1 variant of the virus in all U.S. dairy herds.

The recent outbreak of the virus in dairy cows across 16 states, including Nevada, has highlighted the ongoing and increased need for livestock biosecurity efforts, according to the agency.

The concern about dairy cattle is the possible spread to people, but any cow is susceptible to the disease.