Dr. Wilson, I will take a crack at responding to your query. In 2002-5, in reaction to the news stories on West Nile virus (WNV) and bird deaths, there was a fairly active effort among the Colorado populace to report dead birds to local health departments. Consequently, many birds were tested, and maps of WNV-positive counties based on avian mortality surveillance were frequently updated on the Colorado state health department website (and on CDC and USGS websites that presented national data). At the time there was some (limited) discussion of the relationship between WNV and avian mortality on the COBIRDS listserve. However, with the media hype, public participation (outside of the COBIRDS listserve) in the avian mortality surveillance project was substantial and productive.
After 2005, media attention to WNV waned, and with diminishing public resources, State and County health departments could not use the data derived from avian mortality surveillance to alter their disease prevention programs significantly, so the program dissipated, with the exception of a few small CDC-sponsored projects in collaboration with a couple of County health departments and several wildlife and raptor rehabilitation programs. I was the Principal Investigator of these projects, some of which are ongoing. In fact, I will provide information on such a project at the upcoming State Zoonoses Conference in Denver on April 14th. There has also been a little bit of discussion on the list serve of avian diseases such as H5N1 avian influenza and House Finch conjunctivitis, but in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think the birding community plays a big role in finding sick and dead birds and getting specimens to testing facilities. This could be due to a few possible explanations, including (but not limited to): 1. Birders are aware that handling sick or dead wild animals requires a permit 2. Birders that do turn in carcasses to authorities are more likely to submit specimens to museums rather than health departments, because of the (largely correct) assumption that the specimen will be put to better use in the museum. 3. The common message from Health Departments that specimens will no longer be tested is frustrating to concerned citizens 4. Serious birders (i.e. the several hundred members of this listserve) do not constitute a large enough portion of the general public to find enough dead or sick birds to get the attention of the health authorities. 5. The majority of dead birds found by the public are a result of car strikes, window kills, nest mishaps and other common causes that do not present a public health threat 6. H5N1 avian influenza has not yet been detected in North America 7. Many serious birders (e.g. listserve members) are more interested in birds as a recreational distraction rather than for conservation, and thus pay a lot more attention to living birds than to dead birds. 8. Even the conservationists within the birding community mostly (and rightly) believe that the major threats to bird populations do not come from disease but rather from habitat loss and degradation of a healthy ecosystem due to human activities With all that said, I do believe that testing apparently innocuous single carcasses of birds and other wildlife could be a very important means of pathogen discovery and help prevent a potential epidemic of something novel (like WNV when it first arrived) or even a potentially catastrophic pandemic (like the threat of a mutated virulent zoonotic flu virus, such as that presented by H5N1 avian influenza). But to make such surveillance efforts worthy, there needs to be buy-in from the public (birders could definitely help in this regard) and from well-funded government public health agencies (these don’t currently exist, and it seems like they won’t exist for the foreseeable future). There are additional complexities that could be discussed regarding the reporting of dead birds, and testing carcasses for disease, but I probably have said enough for this forum. I would be happy to discuss these issues further outside of COBIRDS. Nick Komar ******************** Nicholas Komar, ScD Arbovirus Diseases Branch Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 3150 Rampart Road Fort Collins CO 80521 Tel: 970-221-6496/Cell: 970-567-4970 Fax: 970-221-6476 E-mail: [email protected] From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of James Wilson Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2011 10:58 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [cobirds] Wild Avian Disease Surveillance... Importance: High Greetings everyone, I am a pediatrician by training who lives now permanently in the West Slope of Colorado. My presence in this group is from the standpoint of integrated operational biosurveillance- in other words, the pan-species monitoring of infectious disease (or "biological") events that may represent an emerging risk that extends beyond the primary species (e.g. birds) and may extend to other species such as equines, swine, livestock, or most importantly, humans. I've attached my bio below for background. Our team was heavily involved in West Nile virus surveillance, detection and warning of H5N1 avian influenza worldwide, and the recent emergence of pandemic H1N1. So, avian disease is of ongoing key interest to us. My purpose here is to support your efforts in the protection of Colorado's avian wildlife and by extension, protection of agricultural and companion animal species, with an eye to disease that could directly affect humans. My question to the group is what did you see during the emergence of West Nile in the early 00's? Was this group active in noting bird die-offs? Cheers, James M. Wilson V, MD Haiti Epidemic Advisory System (HEAS) Executive Director Praecipio International Washington-Houston-Port au Prince [email protected] +1.571.225.3671 Praecipio International is a charitable non-profit organization devoted to the promotion of operational biosurveillance worldwide. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
