1/2 One of the four deceased storks (photo: Bert van de Haar).
Four dead storks were found in Breda last month that were infected with the bird flu virus. It is the first time that this has happened in Brabant, it became known on Monday. According to chairman Bert van de Haar of the West Brabant Bird Working Group, it concerns a complete family.
Van de Haar received a phone call about three weeks ago from someone who saw a dead stork in a pond near the river Mark. “The female had a nest on the chimney of the Staatsbosbeheer building in Breda. She must have fallen out or ended up dead in that spot in some other way,” says Van de Haar.
“Finder wanted stork to mount.”
“The man who found the bird wanted to take it home or have it mounted, but I advised him to inform Staatsbosbeheer first. That first wanted to investigate what was wrong with the bird. Pretty soon after that it turned out that one of the two young had fallen out of the nest and then a second youngster also turned out to be dead.”
It didn’t stop there, because the male did not survive the infection either. Van de Haar: “People in the neighborhood thought that he might have died from grief, but the chance that the animals set each other on is just great. Those youngsters were fed from the crop and the four of them sat on one nest.”
“More storks than ever.”
According to the bird lover from Breda, contamination by and from birds that live in the wild cannot be prevented. Van de Haar is hopeful that these four victims will remain. He has not received any new reports before or after the discovery of these four deaths.
“I also don’t want to think that the bird flu virus will strike harder. We may now have more storks than ever in our country, but I don’t want to see the number drop sharply. That chance does exist when the virus is roaming under a colony, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.” Well in Drenthe, where about thirty storks did not survive the infection with the dreaded virus last month.
“Uncertainty has grown.”
Previously, other animals in Brabant were infected by the bird flu virus. A number of poultry farms also had to be cleared or cut off from the outside world as a precaution. The virus has kept the poultry sector in its grip for a very long time this year and last year, both at home and abroad.
The uncertainty about the risks of spread has even increased. “It has now become larger than it was three weeks ago, because the infection in the storks shows that different species can contribute unpredictably to the spread. This could change the range of bird flu,” said an interim expert report published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.
ALSO READ:
Bird flu in Den Bosch: ‘Don’t let your dog swim in the water’
Bird flu on broiler farm in Son: 170,000 animals are culled
Fox with bird flu found in Dorst, RIVM asks for alertness