Hi Folks, One follow-up to the long "dead bird" post about handling dead birds. We rarely know for certain the cause of death for wild birds, or more specifically, we can't know if the bird was sick and that made it more vulnerable to being caught by a cat, hit by a car, or dying of exposure, whatever. This raises two considerations:
1) Your health: For you own safety assume any dead bird you find may have been sick and/or carrying germs of some sort, and treat it accordingly. (While there are a relatively small number of diseases that can pass between birds and mammals, there are a handful that can, especially if you are immuno-compromised. ) So, for starters, think about how in the kitchen you handle all raw chicken as if it has salmonella. Do the same. Don't mix handling dead birds with drinking, eating, rubbing your eyes or picking your nose (I know none of you pick your nose by my son does). Don't overhandle the bird or let it lounge around in your personal space. Pick it up, bag it, store it, wash hands. If you have reason to think your immune system is compromised (pregnant, older, younger, mono) and you are worried, you can just leave it be (more then 99.999999999% of all dead things never make it into a museum collections and that is ok too) . Basic precautions and hand-washing after handling should be sufficient. 2) Other bird's health: More likely, if a bird is sick, it could spread disease to other birds. I assumed in my post that whoever is salvaging a dead bird is not turning around and handling other birds (like mist-netting other birds, playing with a pet parrot at home, or snuggling with the family chicken). If this is not true, again, assume the wild bird you handled may have had some virus or bacteria that you'd rather not spread to your avian friends (or food), and make sure to use standard cleanliness practices. Gloves never hurt, but most people do not have a pair of rubber gloves hanging around for this purpose. Cheers, Kim -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
