Vaccination helps rare bird
A Massey University professor is helping to save a critically endangered bird by arming it against deadly disease.
One of the world’s rarest birds, the shore plover, is threatened by the poxvirus, which causes lesions on the eyes and mouth.
The bird is only found in New Zealand, and with about 250 left, Massey University professor of wildlife health Brett Gartrell is trying to save them from poxvirus.
‘‘There’s no real treatment for it, so we are trying to prevent the disease,’’ Gartrell said.
Lesions on their mouths make it hard for the birds to eat, and infections to the lesions can prove deadly.
‘‘We have been seeing birds infected by poxvirus since 2002. Some years. only a few birds are infected. Last year was particularly bad,’’ Gartrell said.
Shore plovers are bred in captivity at the Issac Conservation and Wildlife Trust, Christchurch, and Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre in Tararua.
‘‘These places have suffered from outbreaks in poxvirus. Young birds get fleshy masses,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s mostly juveniles that become infected.’’
Most of the captive-bred juveniles at the Christchurch centre were affected in 2016, with several dying or having to be euthanased, Gartrell said.
For the first time last year, a wild shore plover was infected with the virus.
The vaccine was given to 20 birds as part of a trial to assess the safety and how well the vaccination procedure worked, he said.
A laboratory analysis takes about four months, but of the birds given the virus from November to January, none have been infected so far, Gartrell said.
Pukaha Mount Bruce spokeswoman Laura Hutchinson said the shore plover was the most critical species bred at the wildlife centre.
The first outbreak of poxvirus at Pukaha was in 2005, but were no deaths from the virus during the last three breeding seasons, she said.
The centre started breeding shore plovers in 1981 and has 13 adults and seven chicks.