Avian Vacuolar Myelinopathy (AVM) is a neurological disorder that has killed numerous waterfowl and bald eagles in South Carolina and neighboring states. Over the past 2 years, a cooperative re-search project on AVM has been con-ducted at Clemson University. The cooperators in this project have included the Amy Corps of Engineers, Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study (SCWDS) at the University of Georgia, South Carolina DNR: Wildlife and Marine Divisions, Georgia DNR, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and NOAA. Anna Birrenkott has been the Master’s research assistant working on the project under the direction of Dr. William Bowerman. The unique nature of this co-operative project has been its total lack of external funding, all of the cooperators have donated time and effort or been reimbursed solely for their costs. During this study, aquatic plant material (hydrilla and associated materials) from J. Strom Thurmond Lake has been fed to mallard ducks in order to determine if this could cause AVM in a laboratory setting. The 2001 results were inconclusive, but during 2002 lab experiments, AVM was confirmed in some of the ducks by Dr. John Fischer at SCWDS. This completed the lower end of the AVM food chain The results of a study done by SCWDS (currently In Press) which fed non-releasable red-tailed hawks frozen coots that had AVM, and produced AVM in the hawks, proved the upper end of the food chain. Therefore, the results of these two studies confirm a linkage from "something" in aquatic vegetation causing AVM in waterfowl which are then eaten by birds of prey causing AVM in them. Although this study linked AVM trans-mission from aquatic vegetation to water-fowl, the exact etiologic agent has yet to be identified. Future studies will include at-tempts to isolate the causative agent from the aquatic vegetation material. Identifying the causative agent will be the basis for management decisions concerning AVM. Additionally, future research will evaluate mammalian susceptibility to the AVM.