ATHENS, Ga. | A University of Georgia faculty member in forestry and natural resources is trying to find out what is causing the disease killing off bald eagles.

Susan Wilde is leading a team examining food sources for the country's most famous bird, hoping to determine why so many eagles suffer from avian vacuolar myelinopathy. The disease, known as AVM, causes deadly brain lesions and neurological problems.

Wilde and her team are taking samples from plants that grow in known AVM sites and are surveying bodies of water throughout the United States.

AVM was identified in Arkansas in 1994 with the discovery of 29 dead eagles over two years. Deaths from the illness have fanned out across the country.