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Regular visitors to this blog (I'm assuming there are some) may have noticed that I'm getting a little hot and bothered about the way the media is reporting "Poultry Flu" - aka "The End of The World" - and the impact that such scare-mongering may have on migratory birds should panic take root.
I won't indulge in wild speculation - but it's really not difficult to imagine a fear-filled public demanding that mass culls of migrants take place before they spread "the plague".
Here's an example of the garbage being spread.
A friend of mine mailed me a link to a fairly well-known website called "Common Dreams", and a piece by author Mike Davis. Entitled "H5N1: The Monster at the Door", Mr Davis promulgates his ghastly vision where "our world is imperiled by a terrifying monster." He points out how despite "our [read 'American'] 'culture of fear'... the least attention is given to the threat that is truly most threatening." In restrained tones he asks us to consider that "The Center for Disease Control has estimated that a new pandemic would infect 40 to 100 million Americans. Multiply that by a 70 per cent kill rate and ponder your family's future." He is very concerned that, without adequate funding being allocated to this awful disease, "supplies of vaccine, the first line of defence for preventing high morbidity and mortality, would be grossly inadequate at the start of a pandemic and well into the first wave of international spread." He finishes up by praising Ralph Nader for "being fully awake to the peril" and asks who else is "warning us about the Monster at the door?".
Strident and scary stuff: for Mike Davis the "threat" is undoubtedly of the very real and present danger type.
Timely and accurate writing though? No - this piece was first published a year ago, on September 30th 2004. Almost a year later the "Monster" still isn't even in the neighbourhood let alone at the door, the "peril" still in the minds of ill-informed commentators, and the "culture of fear" still being whipped up by hack-writers whose texts appear woefully short of facts.
Here's another mail, written by my brother Nial, Director of Birds Korea. If you really want some considered opinion on "Poultry Flu" read this - if you'd rather stick with sound-bites and hysteria go with Mike Davis...
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"As a specialist on birds and wild bird conservation living in Far East Asia, I have had to invest a lot of time and energy in past months learning about Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) and H5N1 outbreaks - H5N1 being the subtype that is making the news most this year (the one reportedly being spread around the globe by migratory birds, the one which we and happily Birdlife International to some degree are naming Poultry Flu).
Most of Birds Korea thinking on the disease is expressed in our simple position statement, found at:
Birds Korea: Poultry Flu Position Statement
To add some more history and perspective (informed corrections welcome):
- There is still no hard evidence that wild birds are carrying the virus and spreading it to poultry, while there is abundant evidence that instead wild birds have been infected by sick poultry.
- Outbreaks of the disease have never and still do not match the patterns of natural bird migration: migrations which have evolved over time and which are predictable.
- Past outbreaks of HPAI in poultry have a very long history. They were first described back in 1878 as "fowl plague". Between 1959 and 2000, there were at least 17 primary outbreaks of HPAI in poultry, with 8 such outbreaks between 1990 and 2000. Such species are simply not meant to be "housed" in the unnatural conditions in which they find themselves.
- While Low Pathogenic Avian Influenza is widespread in some types of wild bird (especially ducks and geese), outbreaks of HPAI are extraordinarily rare in wild birds (only one case recorded where birds believed to have had no connection with infected poultry, that in 1961).
- Wild birds, for whatever reason (energetics, lack of resistance?) appear to be highly susceptible to HIAP when exposed: many birds die, and quickly.
- No wild bird has been tested that I yet know of that appeared healthy and that carries H5N1: this despite tens of thousands of birds being tested in a large number of countries that receive migrant birds from affected regions; and despite testing of wild birds in affected areas, even from infected/affected sites (e.g in Mongolia). This means that infected wild birds have not, at least up until now, been shown to migrate to infect new regions.
- The first known case of H5N1 was in a chicken in the UK back in 1959. The present outbreaks can be traced back to a "domesticated" goose in China, in 1996.
- The present strains and sub-forms of poultry flu are all traceable back to that 1996 outbreak: poultry flu has been maintained in the vast poultry (chicken, duck, goose, turkey) industry of the region for 9 years now, often concealed. Such concealment is not only government-driven: huge numbers of poor people depend on poultry and poultry products economically.
- Cases of transmission to people are very rare. There are 70 billion chickens reared annually in Asia apparently; probably smaller but still huge numbers of ducks and geese for human use. However, in 9 years there have been only ca 63 recorded fatalities, in a vast region of huge human population, where in many local areas people live in very close contact with poultry.
- The outbreaks in China (at Qinghai), in Mongolia (at Lake Erwhal), and in the Novosibirisk region of southern Siberian Russia between May and July have all been blamed on wild birds. In a slam-dunk case (where did you last hear that phrase?) all three areas are described by western media as remote; with wild birds that had no contact with poultry dropping dead.
Although it is difficult to get good information, news reports at Qinghai allow that 20 000 poultry in the area were slaughtered as a result of the outbreak (what does that tell you?), and that the lake is actually a major tourist destination with a Buddhist lamasery within a mile of the water's edge.
Considering the prevalence of cage birds in the region, considering the presence of poultry, considering Buddhist ceremonies in some areas 'releasing' caged wild birds back into the wild, it is not too hard to suggest human influence in the outbreak. In Mongolia, the very remote affected area is also described by Mongolian reporters as a major tourist destination with its local population in the high hundreds/ low thousands (so this is how the outbreak in wild birds there was first observed). In the affected region of Siberian Russia, some local people raise ducks and geese for slaughter as well as eggs, which they supplement annually by catching duck chicks at local lakes with nets (along with eggs for further incubation), rearing these together with domestic poultry.
Some also keep turkeys (an early report apparently revealed that a turkey, a non-native domestic species in the region, had contracted H5N1: how could a turkey naturallly catch it from a wild duck?).
Considering that some "domestic" ducks appear to be able to have the virus without showing symptoms; considering that this region borders China; considering trade between China and Russia; considering that the virus has been circulating in poultry flocks in some parts of neighboring China for at least 9 years;... considering all of these things, it is not too hard to imagine how the trade and transport of chickens, ducks or geese, or turkeys, or even just their droppings on a truck, a cage or even someone's shoes, could have infected local poultry, which in turn (being largely asymptomatic?) could have spread the disease to newly-arriving and newly caught wild birds - sickening and dying when infected, and attracting attention. The affected area also has a huge poultry industry, supplying eggs and poultry west to the Urals and east...
- Recent reports that compare the pattern of outbreaks to road and rail systems produce a good match.
- Media reports that incite fear by comparing wild birds to "intercontinental ballistic missiles" (echoes of North Korean missile tests and planes slamming into the World Trade Centre), or state like Niman does that other countries are not testing for the disease properly, are simply and maliciously playing on subconscious fears that (to me at least) are racist, and of course negative about (and fearful of) wildlife and "other" species.
- The outbreaks of poultry flu should lead to a profound rethinking of the poultry industry, a profound rethinking of peoples abuse of other (and our own) species. They likely will not. Already huge numbers of poultry have been slaughtered as a result (a slightly earlier slaughter than if they had been slaughtered for consumption in the usual way...); and in some areas culls of wild birds have been encouraged.
- In the short-term, biosecurity needs to be improved, wild birds and poultry kept separate, and arguments and bad reporting need to be confronted with logic and science. Longer term, I believe that people will need to deconstruct numerous myths, dismantle the cage bird trade and the poultry industry, change the relationship between people and other species. We will all need to take increasing responsibility for our own choices, and simultaneously make better collective choices for our own species.
Nial Moores
Director, Birds Korea" |
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