A fresh outbreak of bird flu in Asia is being blamed on wild birds.
Last week Thailand鈥檚 prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, called for wild storks to be slaughtered, even though his environment officials said the storks were not infected. The decision threatened the future of the openbill stork population, which was reduced to a single flock in the 1950s but has recovered thanks to the efforts of Buddhist monks. This week, however, officials appeared to back off after talks with local conservationists. They are now blaming wild ducks instead.
Experts say wild birds are unlikely to spread the flu virus, as most are rapidly killed by it. 鈥淚t is too easy for officials to blame wild birds.鈥� says Guan Yi of Hong Kong University, whose team recently found that the H5N1 virus causing the outbreak persists mainly in domestic ducks (New 杏吧原创, 10 July, p 5).
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He thinks that the uncontrolled transport of domestic ducks, and farmers restocking only a month after their poultry was culled to control the flu, is probably causing the latest outbreaks. Agriculture officials have admitted that farmers are now moving domestic ducks around the country to eat leftovers from the rice harvest.