Scientists Hunt Bird Flu in Alaska (this sick hoax has to end)

[Guest guest]

{These sick pharmaceuticals companies need to be

stopped! This sick overblown nonsense for profit has

gone way to far!!! Rick]

 

 

 

Scientists Hunt Bird Flu in Alaska By DAN JOLING,

Associated Press Writer

Sun May 21, 6:43 PM ET

 

 

 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The search for the first wild bird

carrying a deadly flu virus to North America is under

way on a lonely stretch of coastal salt marsh on the

outskirts of Alaska's largest city.

 

 

Biologists are ankle-deep in mud and yellowed marsh

grass, trying to net and test two types of shorebirds.

Both are known to visit regions where flocks have

caught the dangerous H5N1 virus that has spread across

Asia and even into Europe and Africa.

 

" Birds up here are going to be interacting with birds

that are going to be moving back in the United States.

This is kind of Grand Central Station, " said Paul

Slota of the U.S. Geological Survey, who will be

overseeing the testing of samples back at the USGS

wildlife lab in Madison, Wis.

 

The focus now is on long-billed dowitchers and

pectoral sandpipers, just two of the 28 bird species

that come to the great avian mixing zone that is

Alaska. If bird flu can be carried long-distance by

wild birds, experts hope to see it first here, before

the fall migration through other states.

 

Of course no one knows if the H5N1 flu will arrive on

the wings of a migratory bird. Or if it will reach

this continent this year. But if it does, federal

wildlife officials want to stop it from spreading

through many bird species and threatening domestic

poultry.

 

Bird flu has killed or led to the slaughter of

millions of chickens and ducks in Asia. It has

infected more than 200 people who had very close

contact with poultry. Of the known human cases, about

half of the victims have died.

 

The big fear is that this virus will mutate into a

virulent form that can easily infect people and spread

among them.

 

But for now the mission at hand is swabbing the back

sides of dowitchers and sandpipers to get fecal

samples that will be tested for bird flu. The project

is so massive, Alaska biologists have faced a swab

shortage. Nationwide, the goal is to sample 75,000 to

100,000 wild birds.

 

The long-billed dowitcher is a 10-inch gray shorebird

with long legs. It breeds in high-latitude coastal

wetlands in Alaska, Canada and the Russian Far East.

 

Those that breed in Russia range near H5N1 outbreak

areas in Asia and mix with birds that could be

infected. Then they pass through Alaska in spring and

fall.

 

Half of the world's pectoral sandpipers breed in

Alaska or Canada, the other half in Russia. Small

numbers of Siberian birds winter in Southeast Asia,

Australia and New Zealand and have the potential to

pick up the virus along the way.

 

Each May, some pectoral sandpipers make a stop on the

Anchorage salt marsh, a beach of mud, grass and

brackish ponds that stretches a thousand feet to Cook

Inlet. The view is magnificent — across the water is

Mount Susitna, known locally as Sleeping Lady because

of its resemblance woman reclining on her side — but

the standing water, mud and rotting vegetation give

off a slightly sweet odor of decay.

 

To a wading bird traveling from South America, it's a

buffet line. The shorebirds feed on seeds, emerging

beetles and spiders. With their sensitive bills, they

probe the top half-inch of the mud for fly larvae,

said USGS biologist Bob Gill.

 

" They can feel a clam move from a few centimeters

away, " he said.

 

Bird tracks blanket the bottom of the shallow ponds.

Biologist Dan Ruthrauff ducks down behind a weathered

log, waiting for his prey to fly into an 8-foot-tall,

45-foot-wide fine-mesh mist net. Over the course of

the day, the net captures more than 20 sandpipers in

several varieties.

 

Ruthrauff quickly extracts the birds, puts them into

cloth bags and takes them to a table where Gill and

other biologists use digital calipers to measure

beaks, wings and legs.

 

Handling one, Gill says the bird may have flown all

the way from Chile. " It probably started a month ago

and could go as far as the Taimyr Peninsula " in

northernmost Siberia.

 

He banded its leg, took a blood and feather sample,

and holding the bird upside down, swabbed for a fecal

sample. The H5N1 virus replicates in a bird's

intestines.

 

Gill heads up the survey for shorebirds. Other Alaska

biologists at more than 40 remote sites will focus on

waterfowl, seabirds and perching birds. Several

thousand hunter-killed birds also will be checked with

the help of local subsistence hunters.

 

Sometime this week, when there are 50 to 100 samples

are in hand, they will be sent to the USGS National

Wildlife Health Center lab in Madison, Wis. There,

under Slota's supervision, the testing begins.