Rehabilitation centers are crucial for aiding injured birds of prey including hawks, falcons, owls and eagles. However, infectious diseases caused by bacteria and viruses can have health implications for the predatory birds and rehabilitation staff. Chlamydia psittaci (C. psittaci) is a bacteria that are of concern especially in birds of prey because they have the ability to infect other bird species and humans via close contact.
Brittany Seibert, a previous volunteer with the CRC, performed this study for her Master’s thesis with Dr. Hawkins. Due to the high risk of spreading the disease to other birds at a rehabilitation center and potentially infecting staff, wanted to investigate how many birds of prey at rehabilitation centers in California are infected with C. psittaci or had previous exposure to the bacteria. In addition, we evaluated potential risk factors of infection including location, species, season, sex, and age so that we could potentially help identify sick birds earlier. Data was collected over a 1-year period and included two rehabilitation centers in southern California, two in central California, and one in northern California (California Raptor Center).
Our results showed that 4.18% of the birds that were sampled were positive and birds admitted during the winter season were 8.1 times more likely to be positive than birds admitted during any other season. In addition, a cluster of birds that tested positive for C. psittaci was detected in northern California encompassing communities between Sacramento and San Francisco. Understanding the occurrence of the bacteria in rehabilitation centers is very important because of its high transmission rate to other birds and its potential to spread to humans, whom work extremely close with the birds at the center. Understanding the occurrence and risk factors will help spread awareness of the bacterial infection in raptors to the raptor handling community to limit disease exposure in the future. The manuscript for this work has been submitted for publication.
Brittany is currently in a PhD program in avian immunology at the University of Georgia.