Bird flu hits wild birds hard, but what to do with corpses?

• Francien Intema

  Home publisher

Who should clean up wild birds that have succumbed to avian flu? This is by no means always clear and this leads to undesirable situations. The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality therefore organized a meeting with stakeholders and experts today and will publish a guideline for handling these corpses later this month.

This lack of clarity is problematic, says avian flu researcher Thijs Kuiken of Erasmus MC, who was present today as an expert. To begin with because of the welfare of the animals; avian flu is a neurological disease that causes the slow death of birds.

It is also dangerous: dead birds are a source of infection for other birds, mammals, and in the civilized world also for dogs, cats and in rare cases even people.

Kuiken also stresses the obligation to protect endangered species. “In remote areas, the principle has always been: leave the corpses, because you shouldn’t disturb the birds. But if the corpses can infect many other birds, it is sometimes wise to clean them. For example, if one is in a puddle where other birds to bathe and drink ».

Jan Willem van Natuurmonumenten also supports this solution:

Bird flu also hits wild birds hard. “Our research on the impact is still ongoing, but in the Netherlands we are seeing hundreds of times more deaths than normal in species such as sandwich tern and barnacle goose,” says Kuiken. He estimates that hundreds of thousands of wild birds around the world were killed by avian flu last year.

The European EFSA food safety authority described the avian flu season (October 2021 to September 2022) as the worst season ever in Europe. Avian flu researcher Kuiken expects the impact on wild birds to become even greater this fall.

Due to unclear protocols, dead birds that need cleaning are now routinely left behind. Managers and protectors of nature have written about it, for example in a letter in which they ask the national government to take more control. The LNV Ministry also recognizes that confusion can arise as to who is responsible for what.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, the Fryslân safety region is coping well with avian flu in wild birds. And the nature manager and conservationists who want more national control also see Friesland as a positive exception.

“What we do is actually very simple,” says Ron Veenstra of the Fryslân security region. He also shared his experience of him today. “About two years ago avian flu raised a lot of question marks here. We approached it as a crisis and we devised a framework where it is clear who is responsible for what.”

This increases safety, says nature management coordinator Jan Willem Zwart of Natuurmonumenten in Friesland. “At first we didn’t know where to put the corpses and we buried them on the spot. The virus can escape because you drag the corpses. Now we put them directly in the garbage bags which we disinfect and destroy. This further reduces the risk of spreading.”

Zwart thinks it’s important that there is a national guideline, because he is sometimes shocked by the stories of other regions. “In August I heard that a municipality recommends throwing dead bodies in the garbage can. This is not safe because you don’t know where the contents go and the virus can spread further.”

For the poultry industry, a better approach to wild birds will make little difference, avian flu expert Kuiken expects. “Wild birds spread the virus, but if you remove a few hundred dead birds from a colony, you mainly help the rest of that colony. The risk to poultry farms does not decrease, because the number of infected wild water birds in the countries. Bassi is a multiple of that “.

Finally, cost arrangements must be made. “First, organizations are quite willing to pay for themselves,” says Kuiken. “But with a sizeable number of wild birds, the costs can run into tens of thousands of euros. There is currently no regulation that clarifies who pays for it. There has to be clarity on that.”

In mid-August, Ron Veenstra from the Fryslân Safety Region sent an invoice of around € 75,000 to the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. “We are still waiting for a response from the ministry, but cleaning up the birds couldn’t wait to have the financial framework in place. We prefer to make structural arrangements for the future.”