Botulism top suspect in swan deaths

BOTOX offers the illusion of eternal youth. This dream substance, when injected under the skin, smoothes out wrinkles and forehead lines.

Five million Botox treatments are given in the United States each year, making it the world’s most widely used cosmetic procedure. This strange substance has a dark side, as the swans in Cork Lough, if they weren’t mute, would tell us.

When an animal or a plant dies, there’s a wake. Bacteria, waiting in the wings, gorge themselves at a long-awaited feast. Their numbers mushroom in this time of plenty, but soon the oxygen supply runs out, putting a stop to the microbial gallop. The revellers, out of gas, heel over and die. Then it’s the turn of a new crop of mourners; the anaerobic bacteria. These, the most ancient life-form on the planet, live only in places were there’s no free oxygen. The stenches from rotten eggs and decomposing carcasses come courtesy of them.