State birds to be tested for bird flu
Birds in state-sponsored hunts will be swabbed
Published Mon, May 1, 2006
By JASON RYAN
The Beaufort Gazette
South Carolina will be enlisting the help of Lowcountry hunters this winter as health workers go on the lookout for the Asian bird flu's entrance into North America.
Although state officials don't expect to find South Carolina birds contaminated with the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, this November will be the first year that birds killed in state-sponsored hunts in the Lowcountry will be tested for the bird flu.
Since 2003, poultry and wildfowl in Asia, Africa and Europe have been infected with this strain of the bird flu, and though transmission from birds to humans is very rare, it has spread to more than 200 people, sometimes causing death. It has not been found in the U.S., and it does not spread from human to human.
Scientists and health officials are monitoring the virus and where it is found in case it mutates and becomes transmittable between humans, which they say could result in a pandemic because humans do not have defenses against the flu.
Beginning around Thanksgiving, the S.C. Department of Natural Resources will test for bird flu during its regular state-sponsored hunts on protected land, which includes Bear Island in Beaufort County and Donnelley Wildlife Management Area in Colleton County, said Derrell Shipes, a chief in the wildlife section of the natural resources department.
Each year, drawings are held to determine who can hunt varieties of wildfowl on the state-managed land.
Following the state-monitored hunts, the hunters normally lay out their game to be inspected by state employees who document the species and sex of the bird.
This duck season, Shipes said, about 500 birds also will be swabbed and tested for the bird flu, which can be detected in nasal secretions and feces.
"We're focusing on migratory birds," Shipes said. "What matters is not where they're found but where they came from."
Dr. Tony Caver, state veterinarian and the director of Clemson University's Livestock Poultry Health division, said he and his staff will be monitoring commercial and so-called backyard poultry for the Asian bird flu.
Caver recommended that backyard flocks be kept separate from wildfowl that have a chance of carrying the disease, though transmission is unlikely.
Shipes said the wildfowl samples are just a precaution.
"Our expectation is we will not find it, but we will be looking for it nonetheless," he said.
Contact Jason Ryan at 986-5532 or jryan@beaufortgazette.com. To comment: beaufortgazette.com.
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