Poachers to blame, not the flu

Ukraine’s Veterinary Service has not detected the highly pathogenic flu virus or any other infections after examining samples of biological material from dead cormorants found on the Arabat Bay coast in the Crimea, Ivan Bisyuk, Chief State Veterinary Inspector of Ukraine told Interfax-Ukraine.

According to Bisyuk, the birds probably died after being trapped in poachers’ nets. Ukraine’s top veterinary official also said that no new outbreaks of bird flu have been registered in the country. Sanitary veterinary procedures are being completed in the village of Pisky, Sumy oblast, where highly pathogenic bird flu was detected in early June (see photo).

The press service of the Ministry of Agricultural Policy also reported that some dead storks were found in the yard of a private home in the village of Bezradychi in Kyiv oblast’s Obukhiv raion. A-type flu virus was not detected by veterinary experts in the biological material.

At the beginning of June veterinarians found 46 dead cormorants on the Arabat Bay coast. Biological material taken from the birds was sent to the republican State Veterinary Laboratory for further investigation. In late April an H-subtype bird flu virus was found in the bodies of dead cormorants near Lake Syvash, in Henicheske raion, Kherson oblast. No cases of massive losses of poultry were recorded in villages surrounding Syvash.