Alaska Is a Perfect Place for Birds to Spread Disease Worldwide

Last May, as wild birds from around the globe converged on Alaska’s western shores for the summer breeding season, local citizen scientists did, too. Armed with sterile polyester-tipped swabs and screw-top vials, the amateur biologists descended upon dozens of homes belonging to hunters in villages such as Kotlik, Pilot Station, Chefornak, and Eek. In exchange for two shotgun shells each, the hunters allowed them to swab the throats and cloaca—a combined genital, intestinal, and urinary cavity—of birds they had killed: 1,014 wild ducks, geese, and seabirds. A month later, another 114 cackling geese from Alaska’s Anerkochik River received similar treatment from United States Geological Survey scientists, although this time the birds were alive.