Yes, let’s hope for strong article from Declan – and from some other reporters who’ve been in touch with some bird people inc Nial and me re this issue.
I’ve just sent a rather late, short response:
I guessed the Japanese crows had been scavenging on carcasses of chickens that died of bird flu (guessing farmers maybe toss out at least some carcasses – by no means all always go by the book, at least in HK anyway [when we had an escaped young croc in New Territories, I saw news report mentioning dead chickens floating down creek it was in – helped give me notion re scavenging, inc for HK grey heron and black-headed gull]).
Seem to remember Agonist board people got a bit excited about these crows, but, as seems to happen with wild birds and h5n1 [till this summer anyway] – they got sick, and died. [not sure if a v few found that were sick]
– ie, as seems typical with wild birds getting this nasty avian flu variant, they didn’t become vectors.
Martin
Post edited by: martin, at: 2005/08/14 04:06