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State's testing of wild birds reveals no sign of avian flu
<small> November 16, 2007 at 11:37AM AKST </small>
DUSTIN SOLBERG
An Alaska effort to test thousands of birds for the disease-causing H5N1 strain of avian flu hasn't discovered any sign of the disease.
The strain of bird flu discovered in domestic birds such as chickens in Asia has never appeared in North America, but biologists have theorized that Alaska's geography may serve as a pathway for avian flu as migratory birds travel between the continents.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent vials containing minute amounts of body fluid samples from 7,980 wild birds in Alaska to a federal lab in Wisconsin for testing. Work on more than half of those samples is complete, and all results are negative so far, said Doug Alcorn, assistant director for the Alaska office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Bird samples have come from three sources in the state: subsistence hunters, sport hunters and birds captured live and released by biologists.
The most focused collection effort in Alaska occurred in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, where the concentration of nesting waterfowl and shorebirds is so high.
In some years, about a third of the world's population of Northern pintails nests on the Delta. Overall, more than 1 million ducks and 500,000 geese nest on the vast Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.
Wildlife officials have drawn almost all of the samples from a list of 26 priority species, most of which are waterfowl and shorebird species. The list considers factors such as the birds' contact with known "hotspots" in Asia, the birds' habitat in Asia and the size of a species' population in Alaska.
Last year, the state's collective sampling effort sent more than 18,000 samples to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. Of those, 5,500 came from samples shared by subsistence hunters.
The sheer volume of the 2006 effort overwhelmed the federal lab, Alcorn said, so the Fish and Wildlife Service set a 2007 target of 11,000 samples. Even though the year's effort sent about 3,000 fewer samples than planned, Alcorn said the quantity was "still sufficient" for accurate testing.
Hunters from 10 villages participated in the collection effort. The villages are Kotlik, Pilot Station, Kwethluk, Eek, Mekoryuk, Hooper Bay, Kipnuk, Chefornak, Toksook Bay and Quinhagak. Alcorn said officials collected fewer fluid samples from hunters in 2007 than the year before.
"We fully intend to continue sampling. Even though we haven't found it doesn't mean we won't find it," Alcorn said.
Though the H5N1 strain is found in Asia among domestic birds and only very rarely has appeared in wild species there, the scientific community doesn't understand why the H5N1 strain hasn't appeared in Alaska.
Alcorn said birds infected with the virus might not be able to fit to migrate, keeping the virus from spreading. Another possibility is that birds are dispersed across nesting habitat in the spring, at a density too low for an infected bird, or vector, to spread the virus with others.
The World Health Organization reports 205 people have died of H5N1. All of these deaths have occurred in Asia, with Indonesia and Vietnam accounting for 90 and 46 deaths, respectively.
Dustin Solberg can be reached at (907) 348-2480 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 480.
On the Web:
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service information
http://alaska.fws.gov/media/avian%5Finfluenza/
http://thetundradrums.com/news/show/823
<small> November 16, 2007 at 11:37AM AKST </small>
DUSTIN SOLBERG
An Alaska effort to test thousands of birds for the disease-causing H5N1 strain of avian flu hasn't discovered any sign of the disease.
The strain of bird flu discovered in domestic birds such as chickens in Asia has never appeared in North America, but biologists have theorized that Alaska's geography may serve as a pathway for avian flu as migratory birds travel between the continents.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent vials containing minute amounts of body fluid samples from 7,980 wild birds in Alaska to a federal lab in Wisconsin for testing. Work on more than half of those samples is complete, and all results are negative so far, said Doug Alcorn, assistant director for the Alaska office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Bird samples have come from three sources in the state: subsistence hunters, sport hunters and birds captured live and released by biologists.
The most focused collection effort in Alaska occurred in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, where the concentration of nesting waterfowl and shorebirds is so high.
In some years, about a third of the world's population of Northern pintails nests on the Delta. Overall, more than 1 million ducks and 500,000 geese nest on the vast Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.
Wildlife officials have drawn almost all of the samples from a list of 26 priority species, most of which are waterfowl and shorebird species. The list considers factors such as the birds' contact with known "hotspots" in Asia, the birds' habitat in Asia and the size of a species' population in Alaska.
Last year, the state's collective sampling effort sent more than 18,000 samples to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. Of those, 5,500 came from samples shared by subsistence hunters.
The sheer volume of the 2006 effort overwhelmed the federal lab, Alcorn said, so the Fish and Wildlife Service set a 2007 target of 11,000 samples. Even though the year's effort sent about 3,000 fewer samples than planned, Alcorn said the quantity was "still sufficient" for accurate testing.
Hunters from 10 villages participated in the collection effort. The villages are Kotlik, Pilot Station, Kwethluk, Eek, Mekoryuk, Hooper Bay, Kipnuk, Chefornak, Toksook Bay and Quinhagak. Alcorn said officials collected fewer fluid samples from hunters in 2007 than the year before.
"We fully intend to continue sampling. Even though we haven't found it doesn't mean we won't find it," Alcorn said.
Though the H5N1 strain is found in Asia among domestic birds and only very rarely has appeared in wild species there, the scientific community doesn't understand why the H5N1 strain hasn't appeared in Alaska.
Alcorn said birds infected with the virus might not be able to fit to migrate, keeping the virus from spreading. Another possibility is that birds are dispersed across nesting habitat in the spring, at a density too low for an infected bird, or vector, to spread the virus with others.
The World Health Organization reports 205 people have died of H5N1. All of these deaths have occurred in Asia, with Indonesia and Vietnam accounting for 90 and 46 deaths, respectively.
Dustin Solberg can be reached at (907) 348-2480 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 480.
On the Web:
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service information
http://alaska.fws.gov/media/avian%5Finfluenza/
http://thetundradrums.com/news/show/823
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