Avian flu is wiping out entire flocks of swans

ENTIRE flocks of swans are being wiped out by avian flu in a never-before-seen outbreak of the virus, experts have warned.

The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), a charity which monitors birds, said water-borne species such as swans, geese and ducks are especially vulnerable.

Steve Knight, a trustee of conservation charity Swan Sanctuary, said that a flock of 40 swans in Barry, South Wales, had been almost entirely killed off by the flu.

“I have never seen anything on this scale. I believe the impact on mute swans will be quite significant and next year’s cygnet count will be right down,” he said. Mute swans are Britain’s most populous species of swan and the King retains the right to ownership of all unmarked specimens found in open water.

Swan Sanctuary’s flock has been in lockdown since Monday, when all kept birds in Britain were ordered to be housed indoors, or in covered outdoor spaces, to limit the spread of the virus.

Mr Knight called on councils to dispose of dead swans much more quickly and said that the public should continue to feed swans so that they did not spread avian flu by having to search for sources of food.

Pete Hughes, an ecologist at Chichester Harbour Conservancy, in West Sussex, described the impact of bird flu on swans as “completely unprecedented”. “We had a number of reports of dead mute swans in a particular part of the harbour called Fishpoint Channel and we collected 26,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme

“We know that there are between about 100 and 120 mute swans that usually use that particular part of the harbour. In a normal winter we might see one or two dead swans.”

Most of Europe has been affected by the avian flu epidemic, which is driven by a highly infectious H5N1 strain first found in China in 1996.

Prof James Pearce-higgins,

director of science at the BTO, said the body was putting together a working group to formulate a response to the crisis alongside the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, the Government’s conservation advisory group.

He said: “This virus is really having unprecedented impacts on our wild bird populations.”

Dr Viola Ross-smith, a seabird expert at BTO, said the working group had seen initial data analysis that suggested waterfowl were more susceptible to the outbreak.

She said: “At this time of year we have big flocks of hundreds of thousands of migratory geese coming in to spend the winter here as well.” Solutions may include the closure of bird colonies and habitats to the public and a world-first wildfowl vaccination programme.

“I do not see it getting any better,” she added.

People are advised not to touch dead birds and report them to Defra on 03459 33 55 77.