NORTHERN PINTAIL DUCKS – LOWER KLAMATH NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

Northern pintail ducks flock to the wetlands of the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge during their migrations in southern Oregon in this handout photo from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service taken February 25, 2009.

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 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Photo by REUTERS/US FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE/HANDOUT