{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.
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