On Oct. 17, 1911, the annual report of the chief of the Biological
Survey contained the following information on this subject:

_Epidemic Among Wild Ducks on Great Salt Lake_.--Following a long
dry season, which favored the rearing of a large number of wild
ducks, but materially reduced the area of the feeding ponds,
resulting in great overcrowding, a severe epidemic broke out about
August 1, 1910, among the wild ducks about Great Salt Lake, Utah.
Dead ducks could be counted by thousands along the shores and the
disease raged unabated until late fall. Shooting clubs found it
necessary to declare a closed season. Some of the dead ducks were
forwarded to the Biological Survey and were turned over for
examination to the Bureau of Animal Industry, by the experts of
which the disease was diagnosed as intestinal coccidiosis.

Various plans of relieving the situation were tried. The irrigation
ditches were closed, thus providing the sloughs and ponds with fresh
water, and lime was sprinkled on the mud flats and duck trails.
Great improvement followed this treatment, and experiments proved
that ducks provided with abundant fresh water and clean food began
to recover immediately. These methods promised success, but later it
was proposed that the marshes be drained and exposed to the sun's
rays--a course which cannot be recommended. That coccidia are not
always killed by exposure to the sun is shown by their survival on
the sites of old chicken yards. An added disadvantage of the plan is
that draining and drying the marshes would have a bad effect on the
natural duck food, and upon the birds themselves.

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