THE VIRUS IS IN THE BASIN
A seabird has turned up dead on the Murray at Wentworth, hundreds of kilometres from the ocean, and it has tested positive for H5 bird flu.
It was a greater crested tern, a bird that belongs out on the coast. Another one has been found near Narooma, and between them they are the first time H5 has been picked up in a native Australian bird anywhere in New South Wales, which takes us to four confirmed detections in this state and 220 nationally. Every other detection here has been on the coastline and Wentworth is about as far inland as New South Wales goes.
The virus is now inside the Murray-Darling Basin, up the road from one of the biggest chicken producing districts in the country. There are more than 500 chicken sheds around Griffith, the plant at Hanwood employs hundreds of people and behind that sit the contract growers, the feed mill, the grain farmers who fill it, the truckies and every family whose income runs through that chain.
Not one commercial flock anywhere in Australia has tested positive and the odds of any single Griffith farm picking it up are still low. One positive result on one contracted farm would bring movement restrictions, destocking, a control zone drawn on the map and a question mark over whether the plant keeps running at full tilt.
The Chief Vet has told producers to house their birds indoors where they can and lift their biosecurity, without a dollar attached to it. Our bird farmers are being asked to quarantine their flocks and put up barriers that keep wild birds off their sheds out of their own pockets, while the government keeps its wallet in its pocket.
The government's own advice is that bird flu is not a food safety risk in chicken or eggs when they are handled and cooked properly, so keep buying local chicken. Our growers have done nothing wrong and they do not need a scare running ahead of the facts.
What I want from Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty and DPIRD is a plan the Riverina can see. Are wild birds around our channels, dams and wetlands being sampled now the virus is in the Basin, has every commercial farm in this district been lifted to a higher biosecurity level, what happens to Hanwood and its growers if one farm returns a positive and who wears the cost while that gets sorted. Better we get those answers while we are in front of this rather than a fortnight after somebody's shed is locked down.
If you come across a sick or dead wild bird, leave it alone, take a photo if you can do it safely and ring the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline on 1800 675 888.
Send this to anyone you know who grows for the plant or works at Hanwood. Better they hear it from someone asking the questions than from a rumour going round town.
