The Marshfield Clinic also says a horse from the Vesper area of Wood County tested positive for the West Nile virus. They are the first birds in the area to have the virus.
Doctor Jennifer Meece is a postdoctoral fellow at the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation. She says the bald eagle and two crows from Marshfield were tested last week and the cause of death was determined to be West Nile.
The Marshfield Clinical Research Laboratory analyzes birds to determine whether they carry mosquito-borne viruses.
Meece says the bald eagle was not the first to die of the virus in Wisconsin but the first in the community. She says an eagle tested from Bay Beach in Green Bay last year tested positive.
She says last year the area had reports of West Nile-positive birds in early August.
