Ducks dying at Ellis Lake

Between 50 and 60 ducks have died at or near Marysville’s Ellis Lake in the last month, according to Marysville Public Works Director Craig Platt.

“The odd thing is strictly the domesticated ducks are affected,” Platt said.

The mallards and geese aren’t affected, which leads Platt and other sources to believe that the water quality isn’t the cause.

If it was the water, Platt said, everything would be affected, including the fish.

Platt said he is awaiting an autopsy on one duck, which he sent to an outside contractor affiliated both with Yuba Water Agency and the city.

The domestic ducks, Platt said, are the ones that waddle around the lake and only fly for short distances at a time.

Dale Whitmore, a former Marysville council member and wildlife biologist, said a likely cause could be botulism, a rare and potentially fatal illness caused by a toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.

He expects more information on the deceased ducks and the water quality issue to be released soon.

“I expect good things to be happening when they (Yuba Water Agency) get done with this study,” Whitmore said.

Whitemore said the lake’s water has improved since the city began circulating

it with a fountain, a daily pump and feeding oxygen into the lake.

“With any lake that doesn’t get any rain you have to keep adding water and circulating it,” Whitmore said. “They (YWA) are doing things now that they haven’t done in the past, which is certainly helpful.”

Many citizens have noticed the

growing number of dead ducks recently, including avid fisherman, Jim Ford.

Ford, 55, of Marysville, said on Saturday he has seen firsthand a pair of ducks die in the last three days at Ellis Lake.

He thinks the cause may be what the ducks are eating, referencing some weeds that he watched some of them gulp down and then get sick

about five minutes later.

Both eventually died, he said.

“It looked like they couldn’t breathe, then they died,” Ford said Saturday during his fishing day. “It wasn’t this bad last year or the year before that.”

Whitmore said domestic ducks do die every year at Ellis Lake for unknown reasons.

“It’s not unusual,” he said.