David Melville (ornithologist) and K.F. Shortridge (virologist)
the timing and distribution of the reported spread of H5N1 from South Korea (Dec 17, 2003) to Vietnam (Jan 8, 2004) to Indonesia (Feb 6, 2004) does not fit any known migratory pattern for any [waterbird] species
Influenza: time to come to grips with the avian dimension, The Lancet Vol 4, 2004.

Les Sims, veterinarian with extensive (unmatched?) experience with H5N1 in Asia
The situation remains that most of the spread of H5N1 HPAI has been associated with the poultry industry especially in places where the virus is endemic.

Wild birds have almost certainly been involved in some of the long distance spread of virus recently (genetic evidence supports this as well), but that once established in a region, spread via poultry or items used with poultry will occur. Iif the disease is not rapidly controlled this becomes the main route of transmission.
(posted to this forum: thread on putting farming in the dock)

Hon S. Ip, United States Geological Survey, National Wildlife Health Center, Diagnostic Virology Laboratory
Reports of the role of wild birds as the cause of new bird flu outbreaks occur almost daily, but at the present time, there is little evidence available to support such statements...
Movement of birds, including annual migration, is only one of several
possible means of dissemination of the HPAI H5N1 virus. In many of the
areas of recent outbreaks, there is a thriving trade of live birds and
poultry products...
Although much has been made of the recent pattern of spread as indicative of avian migration, many ornithologists have indicated that the spread of H5N1 does not fit with known behavior of the bird species in that area of the world (Butler, D. 2005. Nature: ):
It should be noted that the same pattern of spread can just as easily be
seen as from the major routes of human transportation.
posted on promed, 24 August 2005
I think there is a lot of assumptions made out there that are not supported by the evidence.
email to me, 16 December 2005

Dr. David Swayne, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's poultry research laboratory in Athens, Ga
They're the sentinels. They're not the reservoir that's spreading it around. They're infected because the poultry are infected...
When you have an outbreak, sometimes you don't really know what the cause was...
Nobody going to be upset with you if you say wild birds.
In 5 Sept 2005 article by Helen Branswell, quoted in thread on this forum - don't blame the birds. Swayne since come to believe wild birds behind spread to east Europe; tho don't know he'll remain fixed in this belief, given other info such as absence of spread in Asia.

Guan Yi, virologist, University of Hong Kong
Governments embarassed by their failure to halt the flu's spread welcome that idea [that H5N1 travelled in the guts of wild waterbirds]. "They get a free lunch," says Guan Yi... "Each time there's an outbreak, they say, 'It's migratory birds. I cannot control them. I cannot lock my sky."
... Guan isn't ready to blame migratory birds for the spread so far. He thinks the virus has killed infected birds too quickly for them to fly long distances. Instead H5N1 probably hitchhiked across Asia in shipments of live poultry, in a disaster of our own making.
National Geographic October 2005.

The outbreaks in China are not carried by the migratory birds...
Bird flu has already taken root deeply in China [i.e. Chinese poultry].
Namely China itself is the source of bird flu.
- edited portion of Google translation from Epoch Times article on 30 November 2005, at http://www.epochtimes.jp/jp/2005/11/html/d56400.html
- note that other recent articles on Guan Yi say his team has analysed over 100,000 samples from birds around China.

Moscow Zoo's Chief Veterinarian (on Russian outbreaks)
MOSCOW, October 27 (RIA Novosti, Maria Gusarova) - The Moscow Zoo's Chief Veterinarian said Thursday that the cause of the bird flu outbreak is the unmonitored transit of domestic birds, not wild bird migration.

"No one has proved anywhere that the carriers of avian flu are wild birds...However, the black market for trading animals provides all the conditions for the unmonitored transit of un-examined birds," Valentin Kozlitin said. http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051027/41911603.html

Professor Ron Ydenberg, heads the Center for Wildlife Ecology at Simon Fraser University in Canada
Wild birds are implicated spreading the disease because they travel a long distance. There is no absolute proof of that yet.
The real issue is where the highly pathogenic strain of the virus comes from. That's not in wild birds. It's almost certain it comes from poultry population.
in Experts say flu fears over wild birds over-stated, 27 November 2005

Dr Michael Rands, director and chief executive of BirdLife International
The hypothesis that wild birds are to blame is simply far from proven. Wild birds occasionally come into contact with infected poultry and die: they are the victims not vectors of H5N1 bird flu. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4511008.stm<br><br>Post edited by: martin, at: 2005/12/17 02:06

&quot;So far there is no evidence to link the migratory birds with present outbreak of bird-flu in Dhule-Nandurbar, as far we know,&quot; said Dr Taej Mundkur, an ornithologist and a member of scientific task force on 'Wild Birds and Avian Influenza', set up by United Nations.

Moreover, he told PTI, &quot;Migratory birds land in India much early, ie in September-October. So if they at all had carried the virus, it would have been noticed much earlier.&quot; He added though, that &quot;theoretically&quot; all species of birds&quot; can carry the virus responsible for bird flu.

He said that there are various ways in which the virus can spread, but most commonly it spreads through poultry-droppings.

Until now, he said, that movement of poultry and poultry products has been found to be most common cause of spread of virus across the world. &quot;Illegal trafficking of pet or exotic birds is also one of the ways the virus can travel across,&quot; he said.

Another reason, he said, could be illegally made substandard vaccines, which, instead of immunising, may infect the birds.

Migratory birds not likely to spread virus, says UN expert

http://www.20minutes.fr/articles/2006/02/28/France_Les_oiseaux_migrateurs_boucs_\
emissaires.php
&quot;Migratory birds, scapegoats?&quot; [French news article]

A &quot;machine translation&quot;:

The role of the migratory birds would be completely &quot;secondary&quot; in
the propagation of virus H5N1 of the influenza aviaire. It is at
least in this direction that voices authorized in the ornithological
medium rise.

Principal argument: the migratory roads of the birds really do not
stick with the countries or the zones touched by epizooty in the
world. For Olivier Dehorter, ornithologist with the national Natural
history museum of natural history, &quot;there are great inconsistencies,
leaving think that the virus does not travel inevitably with the
migrating ones&quot;. Certain countries flown over by the migrating ones
were not touched by epizooty.

&quot;the birds which left at the beginning of the winter Asia of north,
passed to India and to Pakistan, but there was very little case of
contamination in these two countries, explains Frederic Lamouroux,
ornithologist with the park of the bridge of Gau, in the Camargue.
Israel, toll of migrating towards the East Africa, was saved, like
Australia, place of privileged wintering. Especially, the migratory
increase of Africa towards Europe, by the axis
Senegal-Mauritania-Morocco-Spain-Portugal, is not concerned. If the
migrating ones were the vector of the H5N1, these countries should
have been infested and to know a true hecatomb &quot;.

Until now, in Africa, the influenza aviaire was detected in Nigeria,
and since yesterday, in close Niger. But, the ornithologists notice,
it was to it four long months after the arrival of the birds on their
places of wintering, and the virus struck domestic poultry breedings,
located far from the wetlands sought by the migrating ones.

&quot;Since the beginning of epizooty, approximately 150 million domestic
birds died in the world counters only 200 wild birds, and on the 2
000 declared hearths of contamination, a score has migrating implied
in the perimeter&quot;, points out Pascal Orabi, of the League of
protection of birds (LPO). Then, which is the culprit? For these
specialists, it would be rather to seek side poultry world trade,
legal or not.

Berlin - A German scientist said Tuesday the entry of faeces from infected poultry into the food chain via fish was a likely cause of the global spread of bird flu - and not migrating wild birds.

'We are moving away from the assumption that migrating birds are the cause,' said Josef H. Reichholf, a zoology professor at Munich's Technical University, in a comment published by the newspaper Die Welt.

Reichholf said the spread of the virus from east to west did not follow the main routes of migratory birds and was also taking place at the wrong time of year.
Poultry faeces likely cause of bird flu spread, German expert says

&quot;Migratory birds are probably the least likely way avian flu is going to enter the Western hemisphere,&quot; says Peter Marra, a bird ecologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

The more likely route into the USA, he says, is through the pet trade and the movement of poultry, legally or illegally. &quot;Migratory birds are innocent bystanders,&quot; Marra says. &quot;I don't doubt (they're) moving the virus. I just don't think they're the primary movers.&quot;
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-03-07-bird-migration_x.htm

Quite a turnaround here for FAO, after chief vet Joseph Domenech so readily blamed wild birds for spreading H5N1:
There is no solid evidence that wild birds are to blame for the apparent spread of the H5N1 virus from Asia to parts of Europe, Africa and the Middle East, an animal disease expert said on Wednesday.

There was also no proof that wild birds were a reservoir for the H5N1 virus, Scott Newman, international wildlife coordinator for avian influenza at the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, said at a bird flu conference in Bangkok.
...
"We know that some wild birds have probably moved short distances carrying viruses and then they died, but we have not been able to identify carriage of H5N1 across large scale spatial distances and then resulting in spread to other birds and mortality in poultry flocks," Newman told Reuters.

He said fecal tests on some 350,000 healthy birds worldwide had to date only yielded "a few" positive H5N1 results.

Furthermore, in instances and places where wild birds were found with the disease, there were no concurrent outbreaks of the virus in poultry.

"So we don't have at this point in time a wildlife reservoir for H5N1 ... so they can't be a main spreader of the disease," Newman said.

He stressed the need to focus attention on the poultry trade, and particularly smuggling, adding that these factors may instead be spreading and sustaining the deadly disease.
Don't blame wild birds for H5N1 spread: expert