Breaking news on the BBC is that a dead swan found in Fife, Scotland has been confirmed to be positive for the H5 avian flu virus..

Further tests are being carried out to determine which strain it is...

See the BBC News for further details..

Regards,

Pete

Pete.

l Spoke to a few of our students last night, and some of them were wondering if this would bring restrictions regarding the import of sporting birds from the continent this spring. lt would be a pity if Mad Tony were to use this as a back door way to hit us with another reason for stopping bird shooting.

Dave.
....

I also was just wondering how this will affect the bird shooting...... anyone out there have any idea?

At the moment there is a 3mile exclusion zone proposed by Derfa, around any confirmed outbreak. The zone stays in place for 2-3 weeks and there is supposed to be no movement within this area. This would include the source of the birds, route and destination. So we could get restrictions on putting birds down.

As yet I have not heard of the effects of shooting birds within the zone but I would assume we would be stopped there as well as the dead birds would not be transportable or I assume acceptable into the food chain.

Rgds,

I would be surprised if this did not hammer commercial shooting for this season, at least, until we see how things play out. I know of several large commercial shoots that are taking a sabbatical, as they cant afford to bear the loss of income, and carry the expenditure if shooting is stopped.

From memory there is a 3km restriction zone and then a 10km licensed zone. I cant see that they will allow driven shooting to carry on once it has been found in a county.

Insurance is near on impossible to buy, and the value of your birds in pens if the state vets decide they need killing will be based on cost of production, not on loss of income.