This report was originally posted on Texbirds Listserv by the Wild Bird Center on March 18, 2006.
In response to many phone calls received here at Headquarters this week, here is an update on the North American situation from Rob Fergus, Science Coordinator, Audubon at Home, National Audubon Science Office:
Spring is coming, and recent media reports have made claims that wild birds in Europe or Asia will be bringing bird flu to North America with them in the upcoming migration.
While a few Old World bird species do mingle with North American birds in Alaska and Greenland each summer, none of these species are known to carry the H5N1 bird flu virus on long migratory journeys.
This means that there is a small chance that an infected bird might be able to reach Alaska or Greenland and transmit the virus to American birds, though most ornithologists think that bird flu is much more likely to spread by way of illegal shipments of poultry or poultry products.
Since the virus does not appear to be easily spread even among members of the same wild bird flock (one study in China last winter found only six birds infected out of over 13,000 tested), even if the virus were to appear in ducks or geese in Alaska or Greenland, there is little chance that it would spread throughout North America, or that humans in North America would be at risk.
Government scientists will be testing birds in Alaska this summer to watch for the possible arrival of the H5N1 bird flu, and will let us all know what they find, but for now there is no evidence to suggest that backyard birdwatchers should worry about this virus coming to them by way of their backyard birds.
Websites
- Avian Influenza Fact Sheet: peer-reviewed information for ornithologists, bird banders, rehabbers, and others who handle live birds prepared by the Ornithological Council
Print Articles
- Science magazine: "Migratory Birds and Avian Flu" by Rob Fergus, Michael Fry, William B. Karesh, Peter P. Marra and Ellen Paul. May12, 2006 issue (12:845-846[DOI: 10.1126/science.eqw.5775.845c])
