NASSAU, Bahamas — The government of the Bahamas dispatched a team of experts Wednesday to a southern island where at least 21 wild birds have been found dead in recent days of unknown causes, officials said.<\/P><\/p>\n
Possible causes of the deaths include food poisoning or bird flu, said Eric Carey, director of parks and science for the Bahamas National Trust.<\/P><\/p>\n
The experts from the Health and the Agriculture Ministries, led by the Bahamas' chief veterinarian officer, Jeffrey Lynn, hoped to complete preliminary tests within two days, he said.<\/P><\/p>\n
If those tests can't reveal the cause of the birds' death, laboratory investigations lasting as long as a week would be conducted in the Bahamas and possibly in the United States, according to Lynn.<\/P><\/p>\n
"The government is committed to getting the results of the investigation as quickly as possible," Carey said.<\/P><\/p>\n
No birds have been detected with the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu in North or South America, although a milder strain of the virus that poses no threat to humans was discovered in chickens in Colombia last October.<\/P><\/p>\n
Experts worry that H5N1, which is sweeping through flocks in Asia, Africa and more recently Europe, could mutate into a human flu that could kill millions.<\/P><\/p>\n
The dead migratory birds – 15 flamingos, five roseate spoon bills and a cormorant _ were found this week in a national park on Great Inagua, the southernmost island in the Bahamas archipelago.<\/P><\/p>\n
Great Inagua, which is closer to Haiti than to the Bahamian capital of Nassau, has the world's largest breeding colony of West Indian flamingos, which migrate through the Caribbean.<\/P><\/p>\n
None of the dead birds are species that typically migrate to the Bahamas from Europe or Africa, Carey said.<\/P><\/p>\n
U.S. authorities were monitoring the situation in the Bahamas, but Carey sounded a note of caution, noting that the birds could have died from any number of diseases such as avian botulism or avian cholera, two ailments that are not transmitted to humans.<\/P><\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/SMALL><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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