Tweeters,

For your information and consideration, this was posted to Promed, an
emerging diseases e-mail list-server.

Tom Besser
Moscow, ID
besser at turbonet.com


BIRD FEEDERS, LETHAL - UK
*************************
A ProMED-mail post
<http://www.healthnet.org/programs/promed.html>

Date: Sat, 8 Aug 1998 17:25:15 -0500
Source: Electronic Telegraph, Saturday 8 August 1998
Via: Martin Hugh-Jones <mehj2020 at vt8200.vetmed.lsu.edu>


Putting food out for birds creates "hot-spots" of disease that can kill
wildlife and endanger lives veterinary scientists warn today. Bird
tables,
they say, could pose the worst problem by harbouring "heavy
contaminations"
of bacteria, including strains of _E.coli_ and _Salmonella_. The stress
of
scrabbling among themselves for the food makes the birds even more
susceptible to disease.

A report, published in today's issue of The Veterinary Record states:
"The
small amount of feeding space available to each bird leads to aggressive
behaviour and male dominance of the feeding stations, stressing the
birds
and increasing their susceptibility to infectious diseases. These
infectious diseases may then infect other species of wild birds in the
vicinity and may also pose a threat to human health."

Research into the deaths of greenfinches, chaffinches, bullfinches and
siskins in Scotland discovered that they were caused by a range of
infectious diseases linked to people feeding the birds in winter.
Scientists have also discovered outbreaks of lethal super-bugs known as
megabacteria - 40 times the size of normal harmful bacteria in birds -
in
the wild in Britain for the first time.

Until now, megabacteria have only been found among captive budgerigars,
canaries and parrots, although they have been found in the wild abroad.
The
report by scientists at several Scottish Agricultural College research
centres and the Government's Central Veterinary Laboratory near
Weybridge,
Surrey, says: "Encouraging the congregation of large numbers of birds in
a
small area, sometimes for prolonged periods, is likely to result in
heavy
microbiological contamination of the feeding stations."

Thomas Pennycott, a veterinary pathologist at the SAC Avian Health Unit
at
Auchincruive, near Ayr, said: "It may be that feeding them over a wider
area would help because that would reduce the risk of creating
concentrations of infected droppings in one place. People should
disinfect
their bird tables every day, remove uneaten scraps of food, and make
sure
they wash their hands thoroughly."

[Written by: David Brown]

___________________________________________________________
Thomas E. Besser DVM PhD Phone:(509)335-6075
WA Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab FAX: (509) 335-8529
Pullman WA 99164-7040 tbesser at vetmed.wsu.edu