NEWS: Warning: Bird Flu May Spread to Britain

Looks like the advance is pretty serious



Map Legend

Is that "niman" of Harry L. Niman fame?

If so could I ask you what you think about culling all of the Siberian bird flocks known to be harbouring this illness?

Migrating birds migrate, so most of the green dots are from birds that are in Europe by now and exactly which species are doing the transmission isn't well known. H5N1 will be spread worldwide very soon.

Culling domestic birds is much easier because they are in cages. Wild birs really isn't feasible.

Originally posted by niman
Culling domestic birds is much easier because they are in cages. Wild birds really isn't feasible.

[I put the D in]

What if we use a big net? Like they catch with fish but in the sky?

Dolphins who are meant to be super-smart can't escape the net.

On a serious note, we all knew this would happen give it 3 to 5 years and I reckon we will see outbreaks over most of the World. Birds will be birds, they will fly and many of them travel the world doing as they do - which in this case is passing on a disease.

The virus doesn't become really dangerous until it mutates and is then transmissable between humans. For that to occur a bird has to infect an already infected human where the human has a transmissable disease i.e. the transmissable genes from the existing human infection is picked up by the h5n1.

So the birds are not the problem its the humans that are infected with transmissable viruses who live in areas where they come into contact with wild birds. Therefore, subz, kill all humans who live in the countryside who have a cold! That is far far easier than killing all the birds. The ecological impact of killing the birds will also have severe consequences whereas culling humans will actually benefit the environment.......

Who would you suggest we cull? Who would make that decision? Or do you really think the higher ups haven't thought of that and decided for us already.

Yes, too many humans on the planet but when we start talking about culling is it so odd that we find ourselves in the state we are now?

Please tell me you are being facetious.

"we can track their flock's with radar and shoot them down with flak for all I care."

Brilliant. This is why I love ATS.

I guess we have to kill cats too?

Actually I was reading today that WHO (World Health Organisation) have said that it could possible be passed down to cats and tigers.

Bird flu is proving resistant to treatments and has appeared in animals including cats and tigers which had not been considered susceptible to the virus.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Originally posted by subz
How is it impossible to kill all of these migratory birds that are known to be carrying bird flu in Siberia? We know where they are, they cant retaliate, how is it impossible?

It is not that simple subz. Noone is able to kill "all birds that might carry bird flu." Just to make sure you get all those birds that "might" carry bird flu, you have to kill all birds, and i am sorry to tell you but that's an impossible feat.

Originally posted by subz
If our military can wipe out armies im sure they can take out these birds. I'd go so far as to class this is a matter of national security. Millions are going die if we let these birds live.

Trying to correlate soldiers with birds is being overly simplistic. Birds can fly faster than a human can run, birds "can fly away" and when they migrate they move very long distances, many times without stopping at all.

I think some people are misunderstanding what exactly it is that I said.

Im not saying we should kill ALL the World's birds. Im saying we should kill the flocks that we indentify as carrying the bird flu. We've known for a long time that these birds at those Siberian lakes are carrying the bird flu? Why didnt we kill them all on the ground? We did the same for commerical populations of birds yet we let these other birds spread it across Europe!

Also birds cant out fly helicopters and fighter jets now can they? Why are we being defeatists? If we dont have a weapon that can easily take out a flock of birds then we should be trying to design one pretty damn fast.

Also im not saying that we can possibly kill every bird with H5N1 but we can make a major dint in its spread. If we identify a bird flock with it WIPE IT OUT. Dont leave it to spread it to more birds and then possibly to more people.

If this action slows the spread of bird flu it can save millions of lives. It could also buy scientists more time to design and stockpile treatments for it.

Why the apathy and reluctance to kill a few million birds? We are talking about saving the lives of over a billion people here!

[edit on 22/8/05 by subz]

Or maybe we should allow our bodies to evolve naturally to beat illness?

Every year, we keep pumping more and more drugs in our bodies to stop us from becoming ill slower then the disease actually evolve. Maybe it is about time we allow our-selves to develope a level of immunity to such things?

Odium, whilst I understand where you are coming from I dont find it acceptable to sacrifice probably a third of my extended family for a concept such as that.

When your family members start dying because of bird flu you'll wish we wiped every last one of these birds from the face of the Earth.

Only time will tell.

Originally posted by subz
Odium, whilst I understand where you are coming from I dont find it acceptable to sacrifice probably a third of my extended family for a concept such as that.

When your family members start dying because of bird flu you'll wish we wiped every last one of these birds from the face of the Earth.

Only time will tell.

I also live in the U.K. subz and there has to be a point where we take a stand and allow our bodies to become immune to these disease. It is clear the current way of making an innoculation/vaccice isn't working. In fact I would say it does more harm than good.

Our bodies need to become immune to illness and disease, they have the ability to evolve to fight off cells so why force drugs into our system?

And as for family members dying, it is likely my grand-father will fall ill from this. He refuses to take medication, flu shots, etc [and in fact suffers from less illnesses then many people I know] and won't get innoculated from this if it comes over to the U.K.

To Odium and Subz,

The chance for removing H5N1 from the waterfowl population has long since passed. H5N1 is endemic in most of SE Asia since 2001. As for culling the identified infected birds...well by the time you identify them, H5N1 is already moved on to other flocks. Besides the logicstical problem of mass culling of the wild birds, we just don't know what other vectors are involved in the spread of H5N1.

Our best bet is to push the development/production of anti-virals and take precautions as listed in the Bird Flu section.