Planet Ark/Reuters: UN Vet Dismisses Fish Farming as Bird Flu Risk
The first story covers claims by BirdLife International, a Cambridge-based umbrella body for bird protection groups in 100 countries, that bird flu may be spread by the practice of dumping chicken manure into fish ponds to increase the growth of plant life eaten by the fish, increasing their growth. BirdLife has demonstrated that outbreaks of the avian flu seem to have occurred around operations that use this method.
The second story features a dismissal by the chief veterinary officer at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Even so, he does agree that such a scenario is a possibility:
Domenech told Reuters there was a theoretical risk of fish farms becoming a source of infection if excrement from infected poultry were poured into the ponds.
It could create "an infection outbreak in the environment, in the water, which can be the source of contamination of other birds which come to drink there".
Categories: fish farming | bird flu | avian flu
