BB FANS

Oy!!!!

Organisers of the Royal Highland Show have banned all poultry and live birds because of fears over bird flu.
Managers of the event at Ingliston Showground in June believe the risks in bringing together birds from across the country are too high.

About 500 of the country's rarest farm birds are usually entered for what is the crowd-pulling agricultural event.

Last Wednesday, a dead swan in Fife was confirmed to be carrying the deadly strain of avian flu H5N1.

Kate Stephen, the show's livestock and competitions manager, confirmed the annual bird section had been cancelled.

She said: "We always have display birds for the first two days of the show, then competition birds on the Saturday and Sunday.

"We're talking about pedigree chooks - Scottish Dumpies, Anacondas, Old English game hens and all sorts of geese and ducks.

"We just felt we had to make a decision because we would normally be inviting entries from people round about now."

She added: "If the H5N1 situation escalated, we didn't believe we could take it upon ourselves to put at risk the poultry farmers and egg producers a short distance away from the show at Ingliston."

Story from:
BBC NEWS
Published: 2006/04/13 20:59:13 GMT

Fri 14 Apr 2006
Scotsman

A DEAD swan is being tested for bird flu after being recovered from a lake in front of an office building in the Capital.

The swan was spotted outside the BT building at the South Gyle on Thursday night and the area was immediately cordoned off.

This morning a team from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs came to collect it.

Lindsay Gordon, a BT engineer in Alexander Graham Bell House, said he had seen the swan when he came in at 8am.

He said: "It got spotted yesterday evening. I could see it from the restaurant this morning. "

The 41-year-old said staff had been sent an e-mail from management informing them to avoid the area, but were not too concerned.

"People aren't too worried, they just feel sorry for the swan. There has been a pair nested on the lochan in front of the building for as long as I've been here, which is a couple of years."

Doreen Graham of the Scottish SPCA said there were a lot of swan deaths at this time of year.

She said: "This is the time of year for a high mortality rate for birds and swans in particular.

"It's the breeding season and one of our busiest times."

TimesonlineThe Times April 15, 2006
By Helen Nugent

SWANS and other wild birds are being shot down by people worried about bird flu, according to a wildlife rescue group.

Healthy swans, peregrine falcons and Canada geese have been shot out of the sky in Salisbury this year, despite pleas from wildlife experts to leave the birds alone.

Rescuers from Salisbury Wildlife Rescue found another injured swan on Monday, struggling to reach a river with a broken leg and nine pellets lodged in its chest. A local vet had to destroy the bird.

Philip Groombridge, from Wildlife Rescue, said: “It is ridiculous. People are shooting at everything flying over their land in case the birds have bird flu, but there is nothing wrong with them. The swan we found on Monday was peppered at least nine times. This swan was shot by a shotgun.”

Salisbury is home to about 350 swans. Mr Groombridge and his colleague, Tony Green, rescue about 200 each year but say more and more birds are being shot. “We suspect this is because of misplaced fears about bird flu,” Mr Green said.

It has been suggested that the decomposed swan infected with bird flu found in the harbour in Cellardyke, Scotland, had come from Germany. The bird had a similar strain of the H5N1 virus to one that affected birds in Ruegen Island in the Baltic Sea.

As if birds flying over you are likely to give you it, the only people infected so far have been poultry workers in the far east where there are large numbers of infected birds

People really have the tendency to go nuts and start a massive hunt on these kinds of situations. Like you would be able to stop it spreading by shooting a swan or two??? Honestly!

Lucky you the hippo that you don't have it at all!



That's sad JimD if you can't blame France anymore Traditions changes then, eh?



I loved to watch lots of healthy Swans over here on my way back home today!





I just can't believe that some people wants to shoot them for no reasons!