Mass death of crows creates puzzle and scare in Jharkhand #h5n1 #birdflu

Dec 17th, 2011 // No Comment

Mass death of crows creates puzzle and scare in Jharkhand

Jamshedpur: according to a number of reports in the past few weeks, thousands of crows have been dying in different parts of Jharkhand for reasons that are yet to be found. The panic has now resulted in a visit from a high-level joint team of the United Nations and Union government to Jharkhand recently. The panic is caused by the simple fact that crows tend to hover around human settlements and stay in close contact with humans. In apprehension, the state authorities have now issued a blanket alert to all the 24 districts, zoos and parks. A team consisting of H.R. Khanna, project co-ordinator of Food and Agriculture Organisation, United Nations, and A.B. Negi, assistant commissioner of the Centre’s animal husbandry department is currently visiting Jamshedpur, which is where the trouble seemed to have begun.
In a report sent to the Union agriculture ministry, the Indian Veterinary Research Institute’s (IVRI) Bhopal centre had held the avian influenza virus, H5N1, responsible for the crow deaths in Jharkhand. State coordinator of the Indian Bird Conservation Network (IBCN) Satya Prakash said the Union government had sent a team of experts to Jamshedpur and Bokaro to take blood samples of the dead crows and had mentioned that the crows died of H5N-1. Avian flu had been detected in chickens earlier. Carcasses were sent to the IVRI centre in Bareilly as well as National Institute of Virology, Pune, to identify the exact reasons behind the crow deaths here.
The curious thing about this episode is that no hens are dying, but only the crows. The zoos in Jharkhand have closed the aviary section and are cleaning enclosures and nearby areas with bleaching powder and spraying anti-virus liquid. Birds are being fed vitamins to boost immunity. East Singhbhum district officials have also directed scavengers to dig 2ft deep pits to bury crow carcasses.
According to K.K. Sharma, an ornithologist from Jamshedpur who first sounded the alarm on the crow deaths in Jharkhand in just three months, the numbers of crows is 40 per cent down. Sharma is however skeptical about H5N1 virus as the cause. He says that there was a virus scare in the case of vultures deaths as well but finally after only 1 per cent of vultures were left, it was discovered that diclofenac, used to treat cattle, was the culprit all along. Satya Prakash, state co-ordinator of Indian Bird Conservation Network affiliated to NGO Bombay Natural History Society however says ‘the International Union for Conservation of Nature will declare crows as endangered only if deaths are reported across Asia. We need not worry about that. Let’s focus on imbalance in local environment.’  http://www.bihardays.com/6jhrkhnd/mass-death-crows-creates-puzzle-scare-jharkhand/