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"WASHINGTON ? In about three weeks, waterfowl, shorebirds and songbirds will start arriving in the Alaska Peninsula, the Yukon Delta and the westernmost Aleutian Islands to begin mating. That's when and where government scientists expect the first case of bird flu to show up in the United States.
To screen the birds for the deadly virus, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Alaska's Fish and Game Department are setting up more than 50 remote backcountry camps accessible mainly by float planes or boats.
More than 40 species of waterfowl and shorebirds are considered susceptible to infection by a highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus that's killed more than 100 people, mostly in Asia. It also has killed or led to the slaughter of more than 200 million chickens, ducks, turkeys and other domestic fowl in Asia, Europe and Africa.
Species migrating from Asia across the Bering Strait ? considered the most likely carriers of the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus ? include eiders, pintails, geese, long-tailed ducks, dunlins, sandpipers and plovers. There's also concern about gulls, terns and falcons.
Rick Kearney, wildlife program coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey, described the $29 million surveillance program to collect and sample 100,000 birds ? 15,000 to 20,000 in Alaska alone ? as an early warning system for poultry producers and health officials in the lower 48 states.
"If we find it this summer, it could provide them with several weeks of warning," he said. "We're looking in all places, but we're looking most intently in the place we most expect to find it, Alaska.''
Kearney is co-author of the joint surveillance plan created by the Interior and Agriculture departments and the state of Alaska for use in all 50 states."...
"WASHINGTON ? In about three weeks, waterfowl, shorebirds and songbirds will start arriving in the Alaska Peninsula, the Yukon Delta and the westernmost Aleutian Islands to begin mating. That's when and where government scientists expect the first case of bird flu to show up in the United States.
To screen the birds for the deadly virus, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Alaska's Fish and Game Department are setting up more than 50 remote backcountry camps accessible mainly by float planes or boats.
More than 40 species of waterfowl and shorebirds are considered susceptible to infection by a highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus that's killed more than 100 people, mostly in Asia. It also has killed or led to the slaughter of more than 200 million chickens, ducks, turkeys and other domestic fowl in Asia, Europe and Africa.
Species migrating from Asia across the Bering Strait ? considered the most likely carriers of the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus ? include eiders, pintails, geese, long-tailed ducks, dunlins, sandpipers and plovers. There's also concern about gulls, terns and falcons.
Rick Kearney, wildlife program coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey, described the $29 million surveillance program to collect and sample 100,000 birds ? 15,000 to 20,000 in Alaska alone ? as an early warning system for poultry producers and health officials in the lower 48 states.
"If we find it this summer, it could provide them with several weeks of warning," he said. "We're looking in all places, but we're looking most intently in the place we most expect to find it, Alaska.''
Kearney is co-author of the joint surveillance plan created by the Interior and Agriculture departments and the state of Alaska for use in all 50 states."...