ABOVE: The droop in this bald eagle’s wings is a symptom of avian vacuolar myelinopathy.
REBECCA HAYNIE
Late in 1994 around DeGray Lake in Arkansas, people started seeing bald eagles miss their perches as they tried to land and fly into rock walls. Within just a few months, 29 of the animals had died. Two years after the first episode, 26 more eagles perished after displaying similar behaviors. When wildlife biologists examined the dead eagles and other affected waterbirds, they found extensive lesions throughout the brain and spinal cord. By 1998, at least 10 episodes of the new disease—termed avian vacuolar myelinopathy (AVM)—had occurred throughout the southeastern US, but no one knew the cause.
Researchers have been making progress on the case bit by bit since then. In 2005, they linked the deaths with a newly discovered cyanobacterial species (later named Aetokthonos hydrillicola; the genus means “eagle killer”) that grows on ...
