As director of the Khasan wildlife park Yevgeny Radiullov told RIA Novosti on Friday, it is possible that the birds died of bird flu. There are no traces of death from firearms or a fight with beasts of prey on them.
Radiullov noted that to check the birds for the bird flu virus it is necessary to make an expert medical examination but it cannot be made anywhere in the Khasan district.
Cases of bird flu were registered in Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Taiwan, Myanma, China, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh. Migrant birds can be the source of spread in Asia of the virus which is dangerous also to man.
Many species of migrant birds, including wild ducks and geese, spend winters in the wildlife and boggy preserve zones of Hsiang-Chiang (Hong Kong). A threat of bird flu exists in Siberia and the Far East of Russia this spring.
Measures to prevent the virus from being brought onto the Russian territory are being taken in the Far East. Spring hunting for waterfowl is banned in a number of regions of the Far East in connection with the bird flu threat.
By an order of the chief of the Vladivostok border veterinary station it is forbidden to Maritime sailors to buy exotic and ornamental birds at foreign ports. Furthermore, all craft must be fitted out with garbage-burning furnaces to utilize the remaining food and domestic garbage. Disinfection barriers stuffed with an anti-virus preparation must be placed near the ladders of and on board the Russian craft staying at foreign ports.
Purchase of poultry products at foreign ports is prohibited.
