Bird Flu in Los Angeles County?

This last saturday I noticed a pigeon standing in the driveway of my building, just in front of the gate to the carport. It did not try to fly away from my approach, and appeared subdued and uncaring about my proximity. As I was getting ready to leave the carport the bird wandered into the carport and walked slowly under a truck. It was there when I returned later that day.

On Monday(this) morning, the bird was deceased, it's body still under the truck. I figured it had died of natural causes as some birds seem to know when they will die and wander away from the flock to do so. I went to work.

Geting home this evening I noticed that someone had removed the body of the bird. On the floor of the garage was a small pool of dried bird vomit with undigested seeds and particles in it, there was a white colored smear on the ground around the same area, the same color as bird crap, there was a lot of it. I called the CDC, they said contact the local authorities ... yeah, right.

Hmm, it could be, but I 'm not sure. Birds can die from a lot of things.

Hopefully if it is the Bird Flu, the CDC will know and the Government will tell us. But of course they will probably be like "Woohoo! Something to take the spotlight off of us!"

"Wild birds don't usually show symptoms of bird flu. However the avian influenza virus can kill domesticated birds, such as chickens and turkeys."

www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au...

Many wild birds die from H5N1 bird flu - that's why it is so noticeable.

But hey. Don't test, don't find. Nothing to talk about. It's a great damage control strategy.

...Birds do die for lots of different reasons though. Check out loam's mysterious bird deaths in the USA thread. Forget the name, sorry.

FYI 2steps - when officials say they expect bird flu to start in California, they mean they expect the as-yet-non-existent virulent human form to enter the USA with people, not birds, on airplanes from Asia.

Did you contac thte local people? You really should, thats how these things are tracked. I hope you didn't get too close to the vomit to be able to see the seeds in it.

Keep in mind that there are lots of other dangerous bird borne diseases out there, like West Nile Virus.

I am going to say I am GLAD you did not touch it....

Go pour bleach on the area it passed away, then spray it down good...get it out of your garage area...the spray with yellow lysol. It stinks but does a very good job of ridding an area of bad joojoo gunk......who knows WHAT this bird died from in your garage, so clean it up man.....

Hmm, I don't know if even cleaning it up now would help any. Consider it:

The bird was at least alive for one day after the original poster saw it. Even though it hid under a truck, this doesn't mean that it didn't go anywhere else.

Also, it's breathing, which means that anyone that got close to it could have picked this up.

Also, there have been reports that cats have been dying from ingesting infected (with H5N1) birds. The carcus of the animal could have been easily dragged off by a desparate feral cat, even though it would have been able to tell it was sick.

So I don't know if the government even had anything to do with it. I mean, someone would have had to report it in order for them to know to send a team over to collect the bird, right?