6,500 ducks to be culled after bird  u outbreak

Around 6,500 ducks raised in and around the Government Duck farm at Niranom will be culled over the next couple of days to control a bird ¤u outbreak in the region.

The decision was reached at a meeting chaired by Pathanamthitta Collector S. Prem Krishnan on Monday, after tests con…rmed presence of the highly pathogenic avian in¤uenza (H5N1) virus at the farm. At the meeting, it was decided to designate the area within 1-km radius of the farm as infected zone, and the area within 10-km radius as survival zone. All birds within the infected zone will be culled, while those within the survival zone will be monitored.

Harikrishnan, District Animal Husbandry O¡cer, said the culling operation would begin at 8 a.m. on Tuesday.

He said the majority of the major duck farms in the village were just outside the infected zone.

With a substantial stock of the germplasm of the local duck species at the farm slated for destruction, authorities are now grappling with the challenge of conserving the germplasm of the ‘Chara’ duck variety. The duck farmers of upper Kuttanad are a worried lot after the outbreak. They recall previous outbreaks that resulted in the culling of tens of thousands of birds and signi…cant economic loss.