HKBWS WY

Dear HKBWS members and Hong Kong citizens,

This winter’s H5N1 outbreaks in HK have been very unusual.  There were 2 Little Egrets in Tuen Mun Park, 1 Grey Heron in Lok Ma Chau, 1 Common Buzzard in Lantau Island, 1 Night Heron in Ocean Park, and now 1 suspected Great Egret in Tam Kon Chau.  What so uncommon this winter is that the outbreaks involved mostly wild Egrets and Herons.  I think there are sufficient preliminary evidences for serious concern of a more substantial outbreak in Hong Kong this month.  Hong Kong is much more vulnerable to H5N1 attack on wild birds this year because:

1.        The recent outbreak seems to involve wild birds.  The link to poultry and wild bird trade is not there.
2.        It seems that wild Egrets and Herons are particular vulnerable this year.  Since Egrets and Herons are gregarious, the chance of a large-scale outbreak is very real.
3.        The level of alert of HKSAR government and the press is low at present.  After about 2-years of high level alert, fatigue has finally taken control.  Recently Hong Kong citizens are quite insensitive to isolated cases of H5N1 outbreak.

Here I call on to HKBWS members and HK citizens to keep a very high alert level.  If dead birds are found, please report to AFCD and ask them to check the bird for H5N1 virus.  The mechanism the H5N1 virus transmission in HK this winter is still unknown.  Unless there are more clues, it would be much harder to stop outbreaks in the future.

For HKBWS members, any abnormal behaviors of bird (such as sick birds) near egretry should be bought to the attention of the society (to me, Captain Wong, or Yu Yat Tung).  I hope the society can work together to provide some monitoring that could help to stop the outbreak of H5N1 in HK.


HF Cheung
Chairman,
Hong Kong Bird Watching Society


各位香港觀鳥會會員和香港市民：

今年冬季在本港發生的禽流感個案並不尋常，屯門公園有兩隻小白鷺、落馬洲有一隻蒼鷺、大嶼山有一隻普通鵟、海洋公園有一隻夜鷺，而最近担桿洲又有一宗大白鷺疑似個案。這個冬季大部份的個案都在鷺鳥身上出現，根據這些初步證據，我憂慮本港在這個月內會有更大的爆發。本港的野鳥今年特別易受H5N1感染，原因如下：

1. 最近的爆發看來都在野鳥身上，與家禽養殖和野鳥買賣無關。

2. 野生的鷺鳥今年似乎特別易受感染，由於鷺鳥喜群集活動，禽流感在牠們之間大爆發的機會頗高。

3. 目前本港政府和傳媒對禽流感的警覺性不高，經過過去兩年的高度戒備之後，大家都覺得有點厭倦，最近市民對零星的 H5N1個案已沒有多大感覺。

我在此呼籲會員和香港市民要保持高度警覺。如果發現死鳥，請向漁農自然護理署報告，並要求他們檢驗鳥是否帶H5N1病毒。這個冬季H5N1 如何在香港傳播，目前還未清楚，除非有進一步線索，否則很難防止病毒在日後爆發。
會員如果在鷺林附近發現鳥類有異常行為（例如見到病鳥），請向本會（黃倫昌、余日東或本人）報告。希望本會能夠合力監察，幫助防止禽流感在本港爆發。

張浩輝
香港觀鳥會主席

W 中譯

tbob

Tonight, Saturday 9th Feb, it has been confirmed that a Great Egret found dead earlier in the week had H5Ni

http://www.rthk.org.hk/rthk/news/englishnews/20080209/news_20080209_56_467095.htm

Will this delay the opening of Mai Po?.

It is not stated exactly where the bird was found but it has taken the government one week to confirm that it was H5N1.

sdavid

Is it feasible that these birds may have preyed on diseased (released) smaller birds i.e. munias,  particularly in areas such as Tuen Mun park?

The larger heron species(Grey Heron, Great Egret) and Buzzard  would almost certainly prey on smaller birds I would think having seen Grey Herons prey on small mammals back in the UK.  Not sure if the Little Egrets or Night Herons would prey on smaller birds though - perhaps others have seen evidence of smaller birds in the diets of the smaller ardeid species - I'd be interested to hear.

I think the Society and members have an important part to play in the monitoring/reporting/education of this subject, to echo comments  in other threads.

wcaptain

Just a factual information for sharing.

NH do eat small birds (Crested Bulbul/Munias) but their diet is mainly fish and frogs. GH and GE are basically fish-eating waterbirds.

About the flu, it is not surprised to see few individuals dead due to the flu. We probably have >7000 egrets and herons here. So, the % is still very low.

Captain

wmartin

Indeed intriguing re just how these herons/egrets have been infected.

If not scavenging bird corpses (with Grey Heron before, I've wondered re scavenging dead chickens tossed into creeks),
then perhaps from water - but why so few individuals, why not ducks (which we know can readily catch n spread wild bird flus - Anatidae evidently being chief reservoirs of these wild flus)?
From fish, with sufficient virus in stomachs?? (maybe after eating poultry manure, offal from infected poultry?)

cgeoff

It is important to know how many landbirds have been tested by AFCD this winter. If the incidence of testing these is similar to that last winter, then it would be valid to say there has been a shift in occurrence. However, I suspect AFCD is testing fewer passerines this winter.

I also wouldn't be surprised if the bird market stallholders are being more careful in how they dispose of sick birds.

As Captain points out, the incidence among waterbirds is still very low, albeit slightly higher than previous years.

With regard to ensuring an appropriate perception of the risk among the public is maintained, it doesn't help matters that public parks and Ocean Park have remained open despite bird flu cases, while Mai Po is closed down.

Geoff