With bird-flu getting closer to the UK, is it still safe to feed birds in my garden? Will attracting extra birds put me at more risk in the near future? If birds with bird flu were to feed at my feeder, would I be putting myself at risk by handling the feeder?
I don't know.. but I would be afraid of anything that Donald Rumsfeld has stock in (tamiflu) the cure for!
If there is a malaria outbreak human beings won't stop eating. Let your birds have sufficient feed. Simple solution is free birds of your garden if you do not want to be at risk. Birds are property of the nature...we can't make them prisoners of domestic cages.
Don't worry about the bird feeder. Just don't touch the birds. And check out www.fowlflu.com for all you need to know.
Iam sorry MattBeard, Please forgive me for my post! Let birds enjoy the feeder....Enjoy the colorful birds arrival...Eating Chicken and touching birds may be potential danger for bird-flu. Non-sense posting regretted. Regards Ramakrishna
dont take it out on the poor birds. its not their fault they are sick. however, if you have to feed them you should also provide bird vaccines so if you help them stay alive they won't die of the flu.
Good point. Bird flu is just another boogeyman like SARS and the Y2K bug. Nothing to worry about. I just ignore stuff like that.
Good plan, tesla. Also ignore all that hysteria about HIV/AIDS and cancer. It's all just about people trying to make money off the fear of others. Yeah... And Mattbeard, what the heck is wrong with you? Didn't you see The Birds? Stop feeding them immediately before they peck their way through your ceiling and into your house!
You're wrong on that one, dude. SARS caused 44 people in Toronto to die. Toronto got a bad reputation for a while that wasn't really deserved. (You couldn't see a story about SARS without seeing people wearing surgical masks in the street). I live here and it wasn't nearly as bad as was being reported. However, there were 44 deaths and it is due to some pretty good management that the numbers weren't much higher. But, I wouldn't quite characterize it as a boogeyman. This avian flu has the potential to be very nasty and the human race is really at the mercy of these microscopic creatures.
It's a good question. Technically, you risk exposing yourself to the virus should it appear in the native bird population and you are coming into contact with their faeces, feathers and dust, however, if it is in the native bird population then it is also in the domestic fowl population; i.e. chickens and turkeys. That being the case, eating poultry would pose a significantly greater risk. Proper and thorough hand-washing after dealing with the feeders, no licking the birds and definitely no blackbird pies and you should be ok. If bird flu does let rip, one way or the other you will be exposed to the virus. It will be down to a question of genetics and luck whether you will survive the encounter.
You mean the same way you ignore all the evidence 911 was an inside job? Come on, what are the chances of getting bird flu? Give me a break. And how are you going to compare bird flu to Aids? You're kidding right? That is far less than 1% of the population of the entire planet, much less than everyone was saying it was going to be.
Funny thing about airborne virii... One day, 10 people are infected, a week later, millions of people on all continents. We travel the globe in hours. So, relatively speaking, Turkey is not so far away. It only takes a bad decision or two at the most inopportune time and we're toast. Move over dinosaurs. Move over humans. Next species please!