Strikingly many dead gulls in Nieuwpoort: “Perhaps variant of bird flu”

Along the harbor channel and also in the marina in Nieuwpoort you will find an exceptionally large number of dead or sick gulls in recent days. The animals may have been infected with a variant of bird flu, which mainly affects colony birds, such as gulls, terns, cormorants and spoonbills. “Just across the border, in northern France, they have the same problem. There they found a huge number of dead terns from a large colony. We have now taken samples of the gulls’ carcasses to be sure which virus it is.” , says Luc David of Natuurpunt.

Because colony birds live together in large numbers, they are also more vulnerable to diseases. “A sick gull can easily infect other gulls through the excrement, which ends up in the water they drink from. This allows the bacteria to transfer more quickly to other birds, which ultimately leads to massive deaths. It is possible after such a massive death It will take 50 years before that population is back to normal.”

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