Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Comments wanted on using a rot basket.

DY: For a short time, I thought this might be the answers to everyone's commorant / heron prayers. Looks like it gets the wrong birds though. :-( Bummer!

"Carcass-maggot cycle of avian botulism
It is well known that decomposing tissues containing botulinum spores can support high levels of toxin production (Bell et al.
1955, Reed & Rocke 1992). Fly larvae and other invertebrates are unaffected by the toxin and, as they feed on decaying matter, they effectively act to concentrate the toxin. Toxin levels in maggots as high as 400 000 mouse lethal doses (MLD)/g have been found on waterfowl carcasses (Duncan & Jensen 1976). With a 50% lethal dose for type C botulinum toxin in waterfowl estimated at 36 000-43 000 MLD/kg of body weight (Rocke et al. 2000), ingestion of only a single toxic maggot could be lethal. Although most water-fowl will not directly consume a vertebrate carcass, many would ingest maggots that fall off. In this way, botulism outbreaks in waterfowl often become self-perpetuating. This has become known as the carcass-maggot cycle of botulism, and it is thought that toxic maggots have the greatest potential to cause massive die-offs of birds (Wobeser 1997)."