Finnish wildfowl farmers decide to reduce pheasant populations

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The professional farmers of game birds intend to reduce the populations of wild pheasants living in the neighbourhood of their estates. br /> Their aim is to catch thousands of birds alive or dead, in order to protect their livelihood against avian flu.
      According to German authorities, the disease was found on Sunday to have reached the northern parts of Germany on the coast of the Baltic Sea. The virus was found in two dead birds.
      There are about a dozen professional pheasant farms in Finland. They grow pheasants to be released for hunting.
      Around each game bird farm, there are populations of hundreds or even thousands of wild pheasants.
     
The current aim is to reduce the number of wild pheasants to a couple of dozen individuals in each case. This means that thousands of birds have to be caught and removed alive or dead from the wild.
     
The legal hunting season for pheasants in Finland ends on February 28th, which means that there are only one and a half weeks left to perform the reduction operation.
      The manager of the Virala estate Pekka Korhonen reports that around 500 wild pheasants live in the neihbourhood of the estate's three bird farms in Janakkala, south of Hämeenlinna.
      Korhonen intends to catch most of these wild birds alive by tempting them to go into cages secured by metal nets. The rest will be shot during a big hunt at the end of the month, in which some 40 hunters will take part.
      Half of the dozen game bird ranches in Finland are located in the areas that are at risk from avian flu as defined by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The Virala estate in Janakkala is not one of these areas, but as Pekka Korhonen says, all professional game farmers have made a voluntary decision to protect their livelihood.
      Apart from reducing wild pheasant populations, there are even some other ways to protect the farms. For example, the cages should be covered in order to make sure that the birds are kept away from wildfowl.
     
"It is likely that some migrant birds carrying avian flu will arrive even in Finland. By minimising the number of wild pheasants we are trying to prevent infections that easily spread in dense populations", says vet Ilmari Hiidenheimo of the Finnish professional gamekeepers' association.
     
In another development, Finland is to open a national avian flu hotline.
      Avian flu is expected to come to Finland along with the migratory flocks in spring. Currently, there have been no cases of H5N1 bird flu reported in Finland.
      In order to report the latest developments of the disease, Finnish authorities have decided to open a national service phone number on Tuesday February 21st at around noon. The staff of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry as well that of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health will give updated information on avian flu on 0800-02277.
      Questions can be sent also by e-mail to the address lintuinfluenssa@mmm.fi .
      More information about bird flu can be found also on various authorities' web sites on the Net: www.mmm.fi/lintuinfluenssa , www.eela.fi , www.stm.fi , and www.ktl.fi .


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Dead swans found in Finland test negative for avian influenza (17.2.2006)

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