Chile says latest mass seabird loss of life not attributable to avian flu

Early checks point out that the latest mass loss of life of hundreds of seabirds alongside Chile’s northern coast weren’t attributable to avian flu, authorities mentioned Friday.

Some 3,500 Guanay cormorants—as soon as often known as the “billion greenback fowl” for his or her connection to the European fertilizer business—have been discovered useless since Might 26 close to the coastal port of Coquimbo, in keeping with Chile’s Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG).

Staff in biohazard fits collected a whole lot of the useless cormorants, with their distinctive black-and-white coloration, alongside seashores in sight of eating places and motels.

Preliminary checks on the useless birds didn’t reveal presence of avian flu, which has wracked different elements of Chile, Jorge Mautz, regional director of the service, advised AFP.

Residents of Coquimbo voiced shock on the mass seabird deaths.

“It is by no means been seen earlier than. The mortality of those birds is spectacular,” Edison Alfaro, a 47-year-old fisherman, advised AFP.

Mautz mentioned “one thing is going on within the sea” that’s inflicting the loss of life of the birds that feed every day in Pacific waters.

The Guanay cormorant holds a spot in historical past books. The once-abundant species was an enormous producer of guano on islands off Peru’s coast, the place the birds nested, within the nineteenth century, producing big sums of cash for European retailers trafficking in guano to be used as fertilizer.

Over a long time, tens of millions of tons of guano have been shipped to Europe, and guano turned the primary supply of Peru’s earnings within the latter half of the nineteenth century.

The extraction was so heavy that it destroyed breeding habitats for the cormorants, triggering a pointy lower of their inhabitants.

Immediately, the Guanay cormorant is taken into account a threatened species.

Since late 2021, one of many worst world avian influenza outbreaks on file has seen tens of tens of millions of poultry culled, mass wild fowl die-offs and a rising variety of infections amongst mammals in a number of nations.

Avian flu has plagued the coast of Chile since December 2022, killing hundreds of penguins, pelicans and sea lions.

Chile estimates that round 10 p.c of the ten,000 extant Humboldt penguins, a weak species, have died. As well as, 9,000 sea lions have perished, double the variety of all circumstances recorded within the final 14 years.

On March 29, the nation’s first case of human an infection was confirmed, a 53-year-old affected person who remains to be hospitalized.

In Cambodia, an 11-year-old lady fell in poor health in mid-February with a fever, cough and sore throat, and died from the H5N1 fowl flu virus, in keeping with the well being ministry there.

© 2023 AFP