[va-richmond-general] Culling wild birds due to bird flu in Asia?!

["IE Ries" <featherchaser@xxxxxxxxxx>]

  This is a VERY scary and bad trend if indeed it's being considered.  Is 
Audubon doing anything about this?


  
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051129/wl_canada_nm/canada_birdflu_cull_un_col_2;_ylt=AoaDwSwCnWpPOi5H6pR9cXKTvyIi;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

   
  Wild bird culls unlikely to help bird flu fight-UN 
  Tue Nov 29, 9:25 AM ET 

  ROME (Reuters) - The United Nations urged countries against culling wild 
birds in their fight to halt bird flu, saying the main concern must be tackling 
the disease in poultry. 

  The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) issued the warning after 
reports that wild birds were being killed in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam as a 
precautionary measure.
  "This is unlikely to make any significant contribution to the protection of 
humans against avian influenza," said Juan Lubroth, a FAO official with 
responsibility for infectious animal diseases.

  "There are other, much more important measures to be considered that deserve 
priority attention. Fighting the disease in poultry must remain the main focus 
of attention," he added.

  The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu virus is known to have infected 133 people 
in Asia since late 2003, killing 68 of them.

  It remains hard for people to catch but experts fear it could mutate and 
become easily passed from person to person, sparking a global pandemic in which 
millions could die.

  Another senior FAO official said wild birds found around Ho Chi Minh City 
were highly unlikely to carry the H5N1 virus, while Vietnam as a whole had some 
43 million domestic ducks -- which are very susceptible to the disease.

  "Culling the wild birds is time consuming and costly and risks distracting 
authorities from the real risk, which is the one posed by poultry," FAO officer 
Jan Slingenbergh told Reuters.

  "Controlling the virus in poultry is the most effective way of limiting the 
likelihood of the bird flu virus acquiring human-to-human transmissibility," he 
added.

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[va-richmond-general] Culling wild birds due to bird flu in Asia?!