Field turns birds’ burial ground #H5N1 #BIRDFLU

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Field turns birds’ burial ground - 200 avian species die after eating poisoned puffed rice

OUR CORRESPONDENT

People gather at a spot where a few of the birds were found dead in Balurghat on Thursday. Picture by Mithun Roy Balurghat, Jan. 5: More than 200 birds, mostly pet pigeons and domesticated hens, were found dead at Purbachal here since last night after the avian species had purportedly consumed puffed rice mixed with poison. The mass death of birds had initially led people to suspect that avian flu had struck the area. But the animal husbandry authorities ruled out that the deaths had been caused by bird flu. The disease had killed thousands of domesticated chickens in Balurghat in the past. The local people pointed finger at Bidhu Pahan who cultivates wheat on a small patch of land at Purbachal for the avian deaths. They said he had kept puffed rice mixed with pesticide in the field and the birds had consumed them. The farmer fled the area after the incident. “Nearly 200 birds and even some stray dogs and cats died between last evening and this morning. I have spoken to the residents and some of them suspect that the owner of a wheat field had spread a high dose of pesticide in a bag of puffed rice that the birds consumed and died,” said Arijit Mahanta, a former RSP councillor from the area. “I spoke to Pahan along with the local people and the farmer admitted that he had spread pesticide on the field. He has left the area after the incident. But, we feel that he had also poisoned the puffed rice. The pigeons consumed the rice and died after they flew back to their roosts,” Mahanta said. Apart from the pigeons and the hens, the dead birds included common mynahs also. The RSP leader said he had been shown a plastic carry bag with puffed rice in the farmland. “Most of the birds that died were pigeons raised by the local people. We were surprised that the animal resources development department did not collect samples and send them for tests,” Mahanta said. He added that outbreak of bird flu was not uncommon in Balurghat. Shyamali Oraon, a resident of Purbachal, said she had lost all her 10 pigeons. “The birds started dying since last evening and by this morning, all 10 had died,” she said. The deputy director of animal resources development department, Kamal Kanti Bose, said there was no need to be scared of bird flu. “We have not received any complaints. As we have a poultry farm in the vicinity, I had sent a pathologist to Purbachal and he has ruled out bird flu. If bird flu had been the case, many more birds, including the hens in our poultry, would have started dying. In our poultry, no birds died in the past two days. The bird flu virus spreads very fast and the farm would have definitely been affected,” he said. This is the second incident of poison killing any kind of species in north Bengal in the past two months. Thousands of fish had floated up dead in Jalpaiguri’s Karala river on November 28 after unscrupulous people had contaminated the water with endosulfan, a banned pesticide. Mahanta said the local people had themselves disposed of the carcasses of the birds. “They have picked up the dead birds from different spots and are either burning or burying them. Some of the dead birds had also been eaten by the jackals at night,” he said. The chairperson of the Balurghat municipality, Sucheta Biswas, said there was nothing to panic. “I am looking into the matter. What I have heard is that the owner of the land, who has sowed wheat, sprayed a high dose of pesticides as the crop was about to germinate and he did not want the birds to damage the shoots,” she said. The bird deaths took place a stone’s throw from the area where the top brass of the district administration resided. The bungalows of the district magistrate and the superintendent of police fall within a few hundred yards from the area. “I have no information about birds dying in our locality,” said district magistrate, Durgadas Goswami.  http://telegraphindia.com/1120106/jsp/siliguri/story_14968848.jsp