As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Friday, 7 December 2012

Bird Deaths in Russia Are Being Blamed on ‘Low Pathogenic Flu’


The H5N1 avian flu didn’t cause deaths of wild birds in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region last week, the government’s food safety agency said.

Lab tests proved a “low-pathogenic flu,” not H5N1, killed hundreds of wild ducks in coastal lakes in the Anapa and Temryuk districts in the Krasnodar region last week, said Alexei Alekseenko, spokesman for Rosselkhoznadzor.

No poultry for human consumption was infected, Krasnodar’s administration said on its website Nov. 30. Governor Alexander Tkachev ordered a quarantine of areas and banned hunting there to keep the virus from spreading, the press service said.

Most bird viruses don’t infect humans, according to the World Health Organization. The disease can be spread by wild water fowl, the WHO says.

Rosselkhoznadzor will eliminate dead birds from the area and will not cull other ducks, Alekseenko said. There were about 12,000 wild ducks in the Krasnodar areas last week, according to Rosselkhoznadzor data.

To contact the reporter on this story: Marina Sysoyeva in Moscow at msysoyeva@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net


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