Snails Killing Birds Along Mississippi River
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Posted: 9:46 PM Oct 26, 2007
Snails Killing Birds Along Mississippi River
The small snails carry a parasite that is responsible for killing thousands of waterfowl.
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Wildlife experts say snails are killing tens of thousands of coots and other waterfowl near French Island.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the birds eat faucet snails that sit along the Mississippi River. Wildlife workers have picked up thousands of dead birds along the shores. Faucet snails are found along the river from Nelson, Wisconsin to Fulton, Illinois, but the greatest concentration of infected snails is in the La Crosse area.

"The coot eats the snail, they get infected by these parasites and then when they get enough of the parasites in their intestines, it basically sucks the juices out of their intestines and the birds die," says Bill Throne with U.S. Fish and Wildlife.

Wildlife experts are trying to find a way to get rid of the faucet snails. The snails came to the great lakes area from Eastern Europe in the late 1800s.
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