The Straits Times today had an article - "
Migratory birds to blame? Infected birds on long flights may have spread the virus" - which prompted me to post here this particular email I received yesterday. More research and stats will be needed to confidently, and with all justification, point the finger at the migrants. I hate the power of the media sometimes.
.................................................
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 16:21:48 +0000
From: xxxxxxxxxxxx
To: xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OB] avian influenza outbreaks: what migrant species could possibly be responsible?
Dear... and fellow OBers,
As the "bird flu crisis" becomes increasingly reported by national and international media, and calls for wild bird culls likely become stronger through the region, I would also very much welcome any informed opinion or further useful links to pass on to media and colleagues ( in this case here in South Korea).
Lacking any specialist knowledge on avian flu, and not having read the Time article that Annette refers to, I would also like to add a simplistic response to points 4 and especially 5 of her mail:
"Looking at the East Asian Flyway...should this route be connected to what Time Magazine writer say as contiguouity of afflicted countries to China (who is believed to be the source of the avian flu virus)?"
Looking at a list of the countries known to be affected by the latest outbreaks it is surely tempting for non-specialists to lump all these countries together and claim (ironically, as we conservationists often do!)
that they are all linked by migratory birds. As China lies - kind of - in the centre of this region and the flyway, and as there was an outbreak of avian influenza in early 2003 at least in Hong Kong, it may also be
tempting to speculate that it is wild birds somehow migrating (radiating?) out of infected areas in China that are responsible for the rapid and devastating spread of the disease.
But a simple consideration of the dates of the outbreaks (allowing for differences in government openness and media reporting), seems to get in the way of such a line of argument.
Supposing first that Indonesia with its initial outbreak in August was indeed the origin of the pandemic, can anyone name a single wild bird species present in August in Indonesia that is then known to migrate north
to Korea, arriving in November or December, when the virus broke out here in full? Or, instead allowing for the China-is-to-blame-for-all-such-diseases theory, can anybody name a single species that migrates out of China and arrives in Indonesia in August but only reaches neighboring Korea several months later? Or even a single species that migrates north from China into Korea in winter? Following on from the December outbreaks too, is there any real possibility that infected migrant birds then carried the virus south from Korea and Japan to Vietnam and Thailand, and Cambodia (and even as far west as Pakistan)?
Again, I cannot think of a single wild species that migrates so far south from here so late in mid-winter (such migrants mostly pass through much earlier in the autumn): can anyone else?
The dates of migration seem to point away from wild birds on the flyway being the cause of the present spread...seems to me instead that the rapid spread of outbreaks is rather more coincident with seasonal periods of increased "production" and consumption of poultry and ducks - in time for Christmas, New Year, Tet etc.
Always the birds and other animals to blame, and never the people that abuse them.
With very best wishes and birding.
XXXXXXX
Wetlands and Birds Conservation Specialist
South Korea, and East Asia
.................................................
<< Home