By: Anna Turns
https://www.theguardian.com/profile/anna-turns
An outbreak of avian influenza in seabirds in the Gambia could affect vast numbers of birds migrating along the East Atlantic Flyway, unless international funding is secured, warn conservationists.
Teams from the West African Bird Study Association (Wabsa), the Gambia’s Department of Parks and Wildlife Management, and UK-based NGO Conservation Without Borders have buried hundreds of dead birds over the past three weeks, including some ringed birds from Europe.
The Gambia’s Ministry of Agriculture confirmed the H5N1 outbreak on 4 April after analysing samples from Tanji bird reserve, about 12 miles from the capital, Banjul. The East Atlantic Flyway links bird migration routes from the Arctic Circle to southern Africa via western Europe.
>>“It’s migration season, so these outbreaks threaten birds and poultry all the way from Africa to Europe and the UK,” said Sacha Dench, founder of Conservation Without Borders and an ambassador for the UN’s Convention on Migratory Species, who saw more than 500 dead seabirds at two sites last week at the Tanji bird reserve.
>>“The local conservation organization [Wabsa] is expected to respond yet can’t even afford the £24 boat fuel to go to Bijol Islands,” Dench said. “The cost of it spreading is so much more than simply surveillance and control by good field workers.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/22/bird-flu-outbreak-the-gambia-threat-poultry-uk-aoe