Pink eye causing bacteria found among Saskatoon’s wild bird populations

A few cases of conjunctivitis, also known as the bacteria that causes pink eye, has been found in Saskatoon birds.

The infection is fairly common among birds but doesn’t tend to spread quickly until the winter months.

“What happens is in the winter time, birds have the tendency to come to feeders more often for the easy pickings of food, so the spread of the disease is more common,” said Jan Shadick, executive director of Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation.

“It takes one bird with the conjunctivitis bacteria to infect a feeder and so the crucial thing is for people to keep their eyes on their birds eyes at the feeders, make sure that they don’t have any signs of lethargic birds with red, swollen, crusty eyes.”

Because the infection causes the eyes to crust shut, the infected birds have difficulty flying which Shadick said can make them more susceptible to predators.

“It is incredibly important to wash our feeders when this sort of thing happens. Take them down, wash them with bleach wash your own hands after wards, too,” she said.

“Our suggestion is to keep your feeders down for about a week because if you put the same pot of food out there and the same infected birds come back they are going to re-infect.”

According to Shadick, because conjunctivitis is a bacterial infection, it is possible to spread to humans or pet birds but as long as you wash your hands after touching your bird feeder the chances are extremely small.

Shadick encourages anyone who can find or catch an infected bird to give Living Sky a call so they can treat the bird with antibiotics and release it back into the wild when it is healed.