Avian flu? Thousands of dead Magellanic penguins wash up on Uruguay coast

Uragay's wildlife authorities Friday said nearly 2,000 dead penguins, mostly young, have mysteriously washed on the coast of eastern Uruguay in the last ten days — ruling out avian influenza (bird flu) as a possible cause of death.

The Magellanic penguins, mostly juveniles, died in the Atlantic Ocean and were carried by currents to Uruguayan shores, said Carmen Leizagoyen, chief of Environment Ministry’s fauna department.

She said: "This is mortality in the water. [90%] are young specimens that arrive without fat reserves and with empty stomachs."

All samples taken have tested negative for avian influenza,” she added.

Magellanic penguins live in southern Argentina. When winter in the southern hemisphere, they migrate north in search of food and warm waters, reaching the coast of the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo.

"It is normal for some percentage to die, but not these numbers," Leizagoyen said, recalling that a similar die-off occurred last year in Brazil, for undetermined reasons.

Hector Caymaris, director of the Laguna de Rocha protected area, told AFP that he counted more than 500 dead penguins along six miles (10 kilometers) of the Atlantic coast.

Environmental advocates attribute the increase in Magellanic penguin deaths to overfishing and illegal fishing.

"From the 1990s and 2000s, we began to see animals with a lack of food. The resource is overexploited," Richard Tesore, of the NGO SOS Marine Wildlife Rescue, told AFP.

A subtropical cyclone in the Atlantic, which hit southeastern Brazil in mid-July, probably caused the weakest animals to die from the inclement weather, he added.

In addition to penguins, Tesore said he has recently found dead petrels, albatrosses, seagulls, sea turtles, and sea lions on the beaches of Maldonado, a department east of the capital Montevideo.