Alarming seagull deaths at Atatürk Dam!

Dozens of seagulls dying at the Adıyaman Atatürk Dam have caused concern. Authorities are investigating the cause of the seagulls' deaths.

Dozens of seagulls were found dead on the shores of the Atatürk Dam near the villages of Çobandede and Bağpınar in the Adıyaman city center.

The deaths, which were discovered by villagers, have caused alarm.

A large number of dead seagulls were seen on the shore or floating on the water's surface. Some of the seagulls were seen being eaten by wild animals. Due to the deaths, seagulls have stopped coming to the area where hundreds used to congregate in previous years.

Following a report by Emrah Demirbay, the headman (muhtar) of Çobandede village, teams from the Nature Conservation and National Parks Branch Directorate arrived at the scene and collected several of the seagulls as samples.

The collected samples will be sent to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Adana Veterinary Control Institute laboratories. The cause of the seagulls' deaths will be determined by the report issued from there.

The teams collected the dead seagulls, excluding those taken for sampling, and buried them in the ground to prevent any risk of an epidemic.

''WE ARE CONCERNED''

Çobandede village headman Emrah Demirbay, who reported the situation to the teams, said, “We have crops by the dam. When I came to check the crops, I saw that the seagulls were dead. I notified the authorities. They arrived in a short time. They took samples. We had never seen anything like this before. I mean, this could be bird flu, or it could be something else. We are inevitably concerned. Seagulls used to live here in flocks, but now the number of seagulls has decreased. There are seagull deaths in this part of the dam.”

News Source: İHA