bird diseases

There’s a good article on the misguided persecution of wild birds due to anxiety about bird flu over at Living the Scientific Life. Hysteria over bird flu in the U.S. is still muted because Americans perceive it as a far-away issue, but it reminds me of all the fear and panic about West Nile Virus here at home. Not only was there overblown paranoia about impacts on human health, but among birders in particular there was all this exaggerated alarm about how it was going to decimate bird populations. Granted, it has definitely hit some species hard. In particular, our immediate area has lost nearly all American Crows. Interestingly, there are still large numbers in the neighboring county, but they’ve not dispersed the 30 or so miles to repopulate our area. This may be due to their complex social behavior, discussed in this NPR story about the work of Cornell researcher Kevin McGowan.

However, as an ornithologist, I received reports of the disappearance of a wide range of species. My favorite was a story in a local paper quoting a guy who said, in late September, that all the Baltimore Orioles were killed by WNV– he didn’t see any on his recent walks. That’s right, dude – they all leave here in August! The decline in chickadees was also a popular theme, but research by Cornell (here and here) as well as my own data indicate that chickadee populations declined in areas not affected by WNV and/or over a period beginning prior to WNV. Ignoring science and common sense, people drained wetlands and sprayed chemicals like mad; around here this was especially prevalent in 2002 and 2003. I can’t help but wonder if this had anything to do with a startling lack of dragonflies that I and fellow ode enthusiasts noted last summer.

I can only hope we can better educate the public on how to react sensibly to these types of emerging diseases, as global warming is sure to increase mosquito-borne and other temperature-mediated diseases in the temperate regions of the world.

Comments

[rijith]

good