The Municipality of West Perth is advising the public that as many as 50 dead Canada geese have been found in the West Perth Wetlands, forcing officials to close the trails around the popular hiking area while testing and monitoring are done to determine if avian influenza — commonly known as the bird flu — is present.

“We haven’t been able to validate that it’s avian flu at this point. but we’re fairly confident it is,” West Perth’s top administrator, Dan Hobson, said in an Oct. 6 interview. “I don’t want to say we hope it’s avian flu but, if it’s not, then obviously we’ve got to go back to the drawing board and kind of figure out what’s going on here.”

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Dave Brown, an avid birder from Mitchell, agreed that avian flu could be the reason for these deaths.

“There’s def

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