Secretly dead birds Israel today

As of this writing, no less than 5,000 cranes have been killed in the Hula Reservoir in the past week, following a bird flu disaster in a historic natural disaster on an Eretz Israel scale.

To these should be added 90,000 chickens of turkey, and another 580,000 chickens in various coops in the north of the country, and most importantly - a deceptive feeling that control has been gained over what is happening, but the story is not over yet.

The terrible tragedy that is taking place these days in the north of the country is, of course, reminiscent of another epidemic that humanity has been facing for the past two years. The terminology is similar, the ways of coping are also reminiscent of the same coping, and here too - the great fear is of different variants that can affect even humans, even though towards the end of last weekend the big wave seemed to be behind us.

One of the strains of bird flu is defined as a violent strain (H5N1), and in exceptional cases can even infect humans.

For humans, it is a serious disease that can cause mortality with a probability of about 50 percent.

Therefore, the veterinary services have been operating in recent days in an emergency format, three more centers have been isolated and monitoring in the entire area is working with the aim of stopping the outbreak of the disease.

Towards the end of the week, the Nature and Parks Authority announced that the Chai Bar Carmel Nature Reserve will be closed to visitors, in order to preserve the breeding nucleus of the birds of prey in the reserve and the eagles that are in serious danger of extinction.

In addition to cranes, both pelicans and large bricks found their deaths in patient incidents and the figures continue to change.

natural disaster.

Agamon Hula,

Caution, for diarrhea

This week we caught up with Yossi Leshem, an Israeli ornithologist, retired professor in the Department of Zoology at Tel Aviv University, founder and director of the International Center for the Study of Bird Migration in Latrun.

Leshem, already 74 years old, one of the founding fathers of the field in Israel, claims that what happened last week in the Hula Reed and among the chicken coops is an unusual sight that he does not remember in the history of the country.

"We saw the pictures that came from the reed, and we saw the sad amounts of crane bodies. There have been cases in the past of isolated cases, but there has never been such a flu that has taken such a toll."

Why does bird flu characterize the reedbed and erupt there?

"People do not understand that the Sick Reed is one of the rare and important places when it comes to bird migration. It took us, and the country, years to understand the importance of this place and its uniqueness. And with that understanding many changes took place in the area and in the reed itself.

"The area has changed, tourism around the place has developed, and before the corona half a million visitors a year would come due to the fact that it is a touristy area. When more than 40,000 cranes come abroad to this crowded area - it is enough that one of them has the flu and the infection is fast and deadly."

Unlike humans, here it is impossible to close the sky and the borders.

"This effect came from a bird that migrated from Europe, it's not something local. It turns out that there are about 200 eruption sites in Europe that if we were aware of in real time, we could have treated the reed in advance, and prepared it for the arrival of the sand birds. "In a field of thorns. Until you understand what is happening, everything erupted."

How to deal with bird flu in advance, is there such a possibility?

"We could, for example, spray the reed and thus actually try to prevent the spread of the flu. There are monitoring systems, of course they are also an option and now they operate in the field. When you have such a large number of winged animals, infection is inevitable in the face of overcrowding. Adam.

"The other problem is that we found that the virus passes through the feces of the birds, which makes it even more difficult.

The injured chicken coops had to burn large quantities of chickens because there is no other way to treat the chicken or eggs that have been infected with the bird flu. "

Crane bodies, Photo: Photo: Eyal Margolin - Ginny

Towards gaining control?

Prof. Leshem adds that similar cases have been seen in the past.

"Avian influenza viruses have been known in Israel since the 1970s, and to this day humans have not contracted them. Many years ago there was a case of longing. Kissufim is the closest settlement to the Gaza Strip, and when the Palestinians discovered avian influenza, they put them in a landfill without burning them. That should.

"Later birds came to this landfill, and when they flew over longings their excrement infected the coops, because people stepped on the excrement and transferred it to the coops. But it was an isolated case, some time ago, somewhat reminiscent of what we experience here today."

What is actually happening now, when it is clear that it is bird flu? How do you cope?

"First of all, they closed the reedbed and the activities around it. It's sad because it hurts tourism and the whole area but there is no other choice, it must be isolated. Secondly, we see that the evacuation of the birds is done just like in Corona We know at the moment that the effect is of birds, we still do not know which variants came to the country, if at all, and if there are any among them that can harm humans as well. Because there is no vaccine, it can be fatal. "We do not yet know the effects of what happened."

In other words, on the one hand everything seems to have stopped and control has been achieved, on the other hand there is no knowing what to expect.

"We know that at the moment it is a virus that passes between birds but not between humans. We were able to isolate the epidemic as much as possible from the other areas. These are birds that come here only in winter, and we experience what is happening now with an intensity we could not imagine. Evacuate the cranes. "The chickens and it is to be hoped that in this we were able to gain control of the incident, but there is no doubt that it requires broad thinking on the part of all the parties, who are already involved in the incident." 

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