Bird Flu: Migratory Birds Returning North Could Spread Virus
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
28 February 2006
Jan Jun
Photo courtesy: Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty
Migratory birds are just beginning their annual spring voyage back to Northern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia from their wintering grounds in Africa and southern Asia. This year, the flocks are being followed by ornithologists and bird watchers with some apprehension. Could the migration make the bird-flu outbreak worse by spreading the virus across the continents?
Two big questions concerning the countries of the former Soviet Union are on the lips of many international bird experts. When will the annual spring migration of wild birds reach those countries? And could they bring bird flu with them?
Dr. Richard Thomas, an expert at BirdLife International, a global bird-conservation organization, says the annual spring migration of wild birds from their wintering grounds in Africa back to Europe and Asia is just beginning.
"The first birds are arriving in Southern Europe, Spain, and they will gradually move their way north," Thomas says. "It will be quite a few weeks before these birds make it into Central Asia and Russia and so on, because it's very, very cold there still. And the first birds there won't be arriving until April and May."
"What we've not seen over the last autumn and winter is we haven't seen any dead waterfowl in Southeast Asia, which you would have predicted if it's migrating birds that were carrying the virus to and from Russia, to Southeast Asia."
Thomas also explains that for the Central Asian birds the European route is not the only one. There is another stream of birds returning from wintering grounds in Southern Asia.
"There will be plenty of birds that have been wintering in South Asia, the Indian subcontinent. Lots of waterfowl winter in Bangladesh, for example, and there will be birds that have wintered in Southeast Asia, as well. They will be all heading up into Russia and Siberia over the next few weeks," Thomas notes.
Migratory Flocks Unlikely to Bring Bird Flu to Cape
Cape Cod Times
2006 March 6
Eric Williams
Don't be afraid of the bird feeder.
Despite the recent acceleration of bird flu cases across Eurasia, including several cases of what appears to be wild birds carrying the H5N1 avian influenza strain, experts still think it unlikely Cape Cod residents could become infected from contact with a migratory bird.
''There really doesn't seem to be any evidence to support the fact that it is a point of concern,'' said Wayne Petersen, an ornithologist with the Massachusetts Audubon Society.
There are no documented cases of human H5N1 disease resulting from contact with wild birds, according to the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center Web site. The only documented cases of transmission to humans are from poultry.
For Cape Codders, that means bird-feeding and bird-watching, popular pastimes here, can continue as long as common-sense precautions are taken - precautions that were advised as a matter of course before the current bird flu outbreak. And it remains unlikely that a wild bird could infect poultry living in our area.
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