Abbotsbury Alert

There has been a report of an outbreak of the 'deadly' H5N1 bird 'flu virus at the Abbotsbury Swannery in Dorset (http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,2238598,00.html). The bodies of 3 dead Mute swans were found to contain the virus. This is bad news as in the Swannery (in existence since the monks started this form of 'farming' in around 1040) the Mute swans atypically abandon their normal territorial habit and live in close proximity to each other as well as getting close to the humans who manage them and who pay to see them (these characteristics would be likely to spread any disease agent in the bird population and might make transfer to humans more likely). The Centre also attracts in large numbers of other birds who come for a share of the supplemented feeding- these include a wide range of duck species, coots, Brent and Canada geese etc. The Mute swans (although free to fly) really don't move very far in these circumstances and informed sources are suggesting that that the swans have probably been infected by other migrants coming to the locality. Although Dorset is not a major centre for poultry rearing, there are some celebrity chickens at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage in West Dorset (one of the problems of 'free range' birds is the difficulty of preventing them having contact with wild birds). There are also a variety of RSPB centres close to Abbotsbury (including the Radipole Centre in Weymouth) that also attract Mute swans. It has been suggested (largely because many of the confirmed cases in the UK have been in this species) that Mute swans are more susceptible to avian 'flu than other birds. This seems to me unlikely. It is much more probable that the carcasses of these birds (large, white and floating) are much more likely to be noted than dead birds of other species. Fortunately (it would be very difficult to 'reconstitute' this population), DEFRA has decided not to attempt to cull these swans (largely on the grounds that panicking the 800 or so animals might well spread the agent in the area). A restriction zone has been set up around the swannery (http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,2238951,00.html) which might well have financial repercussions in the area. The swannery staff are being monitored for symptoms and have been issued with Tamiflu tablets as a precaution. It is difficult to know how much this outbreak will interfere with their husbandry of the swans because, in addition to feeding the birds, the staff generally undertake activities such as capturing and weighing birds, ringing animals, creating 'protonests' for the paired birds (pairing generally takes place around February), returning wandering cygnets to their nest etc. Other dead birds in the area are now being tested for the virus (two birds tested 12th January proved to be negative). Having said all this, avian 'flu is essentially an animal disease and there is every possibility that its periodic appearance in flocks of domestic birds (such as those at Abbotsbury) has historically (until recent times) gone unrecorded. A sensible level of responding is required rather than a sense of panic. I just hope that things will be back to 'normal' well before next September (when we would normally visit this and other bird locations in Dorset).