© Joanne IngrassiaA dead waterfowl is pictured at Woodbine Beach on Nov. 5, 2017. It was one of the approximately 30 deceased ducks discovered on the shoreline Sunday.
Toronto Animal Services removed the deceased wildlife and is working on determining the cause of death. Tests will take about two weeks to complete, the City said in a news release.
"All dog owners should ensure that dogs are leashed in Woodbine Park, including in the off-leash area, until the cause of death has been determined," the City said. "Dog owners are encouraged to contact their veterinarian if their dog was in the park on Sunday and is experiencing signs of illness."
Joanne Ingrassia, a volunteer with the Toronto Wildlife Centre, spent Sunday at Woodbine Beach, searching for surviving ducks to rescue.
"It was quite a disturbing sight to see that many ducks ... scattered right along the shoreline like that," she told the Star.
Ingrassia said the dead ducks were scattered across a couple hundred yards of shoreline. While the carcasses were collected, Ingrassia saw five or six more birds come in with the waves.
"I was looking with binoculars, trying to see if any of them had their heads above water or look like there were any signs of life at all," she said. "But sadly, no. That was pretty concerning."
The birds were in different states of decay, Ingrassia said. Some were covered with an invasive, carnivorous species of Asian beetle, their head and necks eaten down to the bone. Another duck still had its waterproofing evident and appeared physically unharmed.
"It was really kind of surreal seeing such a different array of injury or decay to these birds," Ingrassia said.
The Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative (CWHC) will do post-mortems on the ducks, which should be complete in about a month.
Doug Campbell, pathologist at the CWHC, speculated that the most likely cause of death was botulism.
"We see Type E botulism on the Lower Great Lakes most years," Campbell told the Star. "And typically, it occurs from late summer through the fall, and often the biggest die-offs occur during the late fall."
Diving ducks, which feed largely on mussels, and fish-eating birds, like common loons, can be affected by botulism. The disease is akin to food poisoning for birds and causes paralysis.
"The environmental drivers of the process seem to be fairly complicated, and I don't think they're really well understood," Campbell said. "But since 1998, it's been pretty much an annual occurrence on the Lower Great Lakes, in one place or another.
"And in recent years, the area east of Toronto - so between Toronto and Prince Edward County - has been an area in which there's been quite a few bird deaths from this cause."
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