Low water flows cause US avian cholera outbreak

PORTLAND, OREGON, Apr 18:  More than 10,000 migrating birds have died from an avian cholera outbreak blamed on reduced water flows through vast marshlands of southern Oregon and northern California known as Western Everglades, federal wildlife officials said. Avian cholera, which poses virtually no risk to human health, surfaces in the region nearly every year in wetlands of the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, but the recent waterfowl die-off there is the worst in over a decade, said Matt Baun, a spokesman for the US Fish and Wildlife  Service. (agencies)