A Manitoba wildlife organization is sounding the alarm after a number of birds have been found either sick or dead.

The Prairie Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre put out a public notice, after seeing an abnormal number of sick and dying young merlin falcons and crows.

Along with the animals coming into the centre, president Lisa Tretiak said they’d also received a number of calls about similar cases from people in the Winnipeg area.

“We’ve probably seen well over 50 crows with similar symptoms,” said Tretiak.

“Even the crows that we’ve had in care have been dying on us.”

Tretiak also said they’d found over 30 dead merlins, a small falcon species, in just a few weeks.

While Tretiak acknowledged that young birds often die, she explained that many of the crows getting sick are nearly into adulthood.

“With the crows they’re very large so they should be able to fly, but they lose function on their feet, they’re not able to stand up,” said Tretiak.

“Then you’ll see the twitching that will happen.”

Tretiak also said young merlins that should be calling were not making any noise, then would show similar symptoms before dying.

The matter hits close to home for masters student Justine Josephson-Laidlaw, who has focused her studies on merlins and also volunteers at the centre.

While tracking the birds with the hope of developing population data for Winnipeg, Josephson-Laidlaw made a disturbing discovery in a nest of young merlins.

“When we got there most of them were sick, or a lot of them were dead. Then we just got call after call after call,” said Josephson-Laidlaw.

Both Josephson-Laidlaw and Tretiak said it’s too soon to speculate what could be causing the sickness, but said a number of birds had been sent for testing at the University of Manitoba.

Tretiak said the results could take anywhere from a few says to a few weeks.

“We don’t know what it is, but whatever it is we need to find a way to mitigate it,” said Josephson-Laidlaw.

The testing is being paid for by the province and a statement from Manitoba Sustainable Development reads:

“Manitoba Sustainable Development is investigating reports of sick or dead merlins (small falcon species) and crows in the Winnipeg area. A sample of deceased birds have been submitted for necropsy and testing in hopes of identifying the cause.”