J Castwell: Control of the lovely creatures could easily be established if they were given over to the ‘Army Corps of Engineers’ or, better yet, to make sure their future is secure, the U.S.P.S.
EXCELLENT IDEA!
We could give them all packages to mail back to Canada and they would all die of old age waiting in line because only one window was open while three other postal clerks are gabbing in the back room.
Also heard on a medical channel that the Avian Flu has already mutated to where it can be passed from bird to animal. Currently, the only way humans can get it is from contact with the infected bird !!! They do expect this to mutate where it can pass from human to human. This is very serious indeed (not only just from the fly tying perspective). A pandemic happens every
30 to 40 years. They are saying we are due
for another pandemic, & the Avian bird flu
has a 50% mortality rate !!!
I raised my own birds for 35 years and even though avaian flu’s have come and gone around here many times I never had a case of it in my flocks simply because I kept them well isolated. Im sure commercial growers who produce tying feathers do the same. My fear is if things get out of hand over zelous bureaucrats will order all flocks to be killed in the name of national security or some other silly reason… FB.
J.C.
Why pick on the employees of the United States Postal Service? Largest Mail Service in the World, they deliver more mail each day, than all the other Postal Services in the world (combined)! They give you the best mail delivery service in the world.
They are the only Postal Service that generate enough revenue, that they do not receive any tax dollars. 37 cents is all it costs to mail a letter anywhere in the USA (including Army Post Offices & Fleet Post Office around the world), all United State Territories (Guam, Purto Rico, Virgin Islands, ect.).
“Seven Little Postmen”
[i]“Seven Little Postmen carried the mail.
Through Rain and Snow and Wind and Hail
Through Snow and Rain and Gloom of Night”
“Seven Little Postmen
Out of sight.
Over Land and Sea
Through Air and Light
Through Snow and Rain
And Gloom of Night…
Put a stamp on your letter
And seal it tight”[/i]
~Margaret Wise Brown (1952), from the book “Seven Little Postmen”
[This message has been edited by Steven H. McGarthwaite (edited 20 October 2005).]
Gee Parn, one might think you once worked for the Post Office.
When this flu virus finally does mutate to go from bird to human, it may be a mild mutation.
Castwell,
Sometimes I get annoyed when you are irascible, and short with folks. I know you don’t suffer fools easily. Today, however, you must be feeling reel gud!! Your Canada Goose bit was a beaut! Thanks for making my day.
SweetStreamS
I don’t know if Parn is, or was, a USPS employee, but I sure was. Gee I miss the discount on ammo…
Ed
This avian flu thing could be very big on several levels. First, when it gets into thehuman population, there could well be many deaths. When it gets here, it could wipe out many breeders birds far beyond our coveted genetic hackle breeders. A lot of folks all over the country have a lot of very expensive exotic birds.
For tyers, if you use Golden, Amherst, Reeves, Temminick’s Tragopan and a few other birds feathers, they will not be available and possibly for a long time. All of that comes from Asia.
Yes, I am concerned about the potential damage this might bring us.
Happy Trails!
Ronn
It’s all our fault, this was in this morning’s “Scotsman” newspaper :-
"Scientists discover deadly bird flu began in Scotland
FRASER NELSON AND JIM GILCHRIST
Key points
? The first record of the H5N1 virus has been traced to an Aberdeen farm
? The avian flu has been tracked back to a Scottish chicken in 1959
? The virus has become deadlier over the past 46 years
Story in full THE strain of avian flu which has so far swept from South Korea to Russia made its world debut in 1959 inside a Scottish chicken, it has emerged.
Scientists tracing the history of the H5N1 virus have traced its first recorded episode to an Aberdeen farm. The dead bird was taken to Surrey for medical examination, after infecting two flocks of chickens.
But while British medical authorities are preparing to cope with a pandemic of a new H5N1 outbreak from South-east Asia, the case notes of the original Scottish case have not been consulted, on the grounds that the virus has grown far heartier and deadlier over the past 46 years.
The reams of research papers tracing the history of H5N1, which resurfaced in South Korea two years ago, show academics are unanimous in identifying the virus as being effectively made in Scotland.
A scientist identified only as Dr JE Wilson, of the Veterinary Laboratory in Lasswade, outside Edinburgh, is recorded as having worked on the case - sending the chicken to Addlestone, where the strain was medically isolated so it could be used in experiments. The Scottish H5N1 has been used in experiments, named “chicken/Scotland/1959”.
It was the first of 21 avian flu outbreaks that have affected the world - including English turkeys in 1963, 1979 and 1991. But none showed the powers of contagion seen by the eight Asian countries to have confirmed H5N1, which has killed 69 people and 100 million birds.
Tom Pennycott, an avian veterinary specialist at the Scottish Agricultural College at Auchincruive, Ayrshire, said the virus may have the same title, but other characteristics will have changed over 46 years.
“The H5N1 that was found back in 1959 would have been quite different to the one that’s around now,” he said. “Similarly, there was an H5N1 down in Norfolk in December 1991 and it will be different to the H5N1 that’s about just now.”
He added that the only additional information he has been able to find about the H5N1 in Scotland was that two flocks of chickens were infected. The total number of birds affected, however, was not reported.
No medical agency in Scotland or England was able to give many details - except to say that the disease has become heartier and deadlier since it was found in Scotland. There is also no sign of Dr Wilson. The Moredun Research Institute at Penicuik said that it had no record of him and that he was likely to have passed away."
( I don’t know about anybody else, but that statement kinda worries me!!!)
“Flu strains are named after the various H and N protein codes recognised by the immune system. No H5 flu had ever spread to humans before 1997, when Hong Kong reported six casualties.
The 1959 Scottish H5N1 was - like all its successors - incapable of moving from species to species. But this changed last year, when the South Korean version showed itself capable of infecting pigs, rodents and humans.
Scientists have been most alarmed at the fast rate of H5N1’s mutation. For the first time, the virus can survive in chicken faeces and in dead meat, without requiring the flow of fresh blood. This has made it stealthier, claiming victims who had no obvious connection with the agricultural industry.
But its low human death toll suggests that the disease has yet to pass from human to human.
Meanwhile, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, met British farmers yesterday and said he agreed with the National Farmers Union that chicken remained safe to eat.”
So!! What happened to Doc Wilson???
Donald/Scotland
[This message has been edited by Donald Nicolson (edited 21 October 2005).]
It remains a quite well kept secret, but Doc Wilson changed his name to “Just Plain Joe” and is no longer affiliated with birds, but has an underground business. Doc Joe tells all the FFers who will listen that bird feathers are a thing of the past and that they need to change their ways.
Think SPD!!!
Do a Google search on Poultry Embargo.
It’ll scare the - - - - out of you!
So far 65 people have died of it! That’s why everyone is on the red alert.
A. K.
Mother natures way of dealing with over crowded streams.
Ahhhh man, and here I am just getting over my mad cow desease. Now I’m gonna get the bird flu!!!
Actually, this may be a great investment opportunity. Right now tonight buy up all theSalmon fly tying material featherwise that you can get that is already over here and… er? what’s that? JC has already bought it all up?
As long as there is never a polar bear flu, I am OK.
I guess I’m safe!..I have improved my tying to the point that the legs on my sponge spiders now stay where the “H” I put 'em!!! Feathers?..Yeah, I have 'em, & one of these days, I’ll figure out how to use 'em!
Mike
Mike : just flap your wings and fly; nothing to it. Don’t get too close to Jack though,he might pluck them and stick them on a hook.
all leaders tangle; mine are just better at it than most. Jim
Countries Try to Prevent Bird Flu Cases
By CATHERINE McALOON, Associated Press Writer
October 22, 2005
LONDON - Britain and Croatia confirmed cases of bird flu on Friday as countries around the world scrambled to put in place measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
In Croatia, the Agriculture Ministry said the country’s first cases of bird flu were confirmed in six swans found dead in a national park. British officials said a parrot that had been imported from South America died of bird flu in quarantine.
In both cases, authorities did not know if the birds had the deadly H5N1 strain that has devastated poultry stocks across Asia and killed 60 people in the last two years. The strain has recently been found in birds in Russia, Turkey and Romania.
The European Union said Friday it was preparing a ban on all poultry imports from Croatia. EU officials have previously ordered restrictions on bird markets and shows and urged nations to present a program of vaccination for zoo birds as part of measures to head off the spread of the disease.
The EU’s executive office said Croatian veterinary authorities had told them the H5 bird flu virus had been isolated in samples taken from wild swans found dead near a pond and a fish farm in the eastern part of the country.
About 1,500 migratory swans arrived in the area a few days ago and a fish farmer then found about 15 of them dead, the EU said. Tests carried out by Croatian experts on samples from six of the birds led to the discovery of the virus.
Croats had feared the arrival of bird flu in their country _ a major migratory route for various bird species.
Britain’s chief veterinarian, Debby Reynolds, said Friday the diseased parrot, which had been imported from Suriname and held in a quarantine unit with a shipment of birds from Taiwan, had tested positive for a “highly pathogenic” form of bird flu.
Further tests were being carried out to see if the bird carried the H5N1 strain, which is easily transmitted between birds, but is hard for humans to contract. Experts are closely watching the disease, however, for fear it could mutate into a form easily transmitted between humans.
The EU, which has also taken measures to restrict the import of live birds and feathers from Russia following the spread of bird flu there, said its vets were continuing to carry out tests on samples from suspect birds found in Greece.
Norway on Friday joined other European countries in ordering poultry farmers to keep their flocks indoors as a precaution against the disease.
In Latin America, meanwhile, top health officials from six Andean nations made plans to prevent a pandemic as Venezuela closed its border with Colombia over concerns about a milder strain not fatal to humans.
Top regional health officials held a hastily arranged meeting Friday in Peru’s capital of Lima, downplaying the risk of bird flu hitting Latin America because it is largely isolated from migratory bird routes thought to be responsible for carrying the disease recently to Turkey and Romania.
But Peruvian Health Minister Pilar Mazzetti said the six nations did agree to negotiate as a bloc to obtain Tamiflu, the drug thought to be most effective in treating the disease in humans.
The Andean officials also agreed to establish a group to develop “a proposal to permit confronting jointly an eventual flu pandemic that would affect our region,” according to a statement.
Honduras and Panama also said Friday they were monitoring their borders, had prohibited importation of birds from affected nations and would keep an eye on migratory birds, which officials fear could carry the disease to the Americas from Asia.
[This message has been edited by Steven H. McGarthwaite (edited 22 October 2005).]
I think the parrot was a NORWEGIAN BLUE