MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

“Russia has been dealing with African swine fever (ASF) in its swine herd since 2007 and the virus keeps marching across the country. This has prompted serious concerns about the prospect of the virus spreading into other Eastern European countries.

Now, a southern Russian farm had to slaughter all 30,736 of its pigs because of ASF, reports Bloomberg News. The pigs belonged to the Plemzavod Industrialny farm, located in the southern Russian Krasnodar region.

These hogs generally went to supply pork to local markets in the region, according to Alexei Alekseenko, a spokesman for Rosselkhoznadzor, Russia’s food-safety agency.

This marks the country’s largest outbreak of the virus, and consequent culling. The animal carcasses are typically burned and buried.

ASF was reported in a major agricultural breeding plant located a few kilometers out of Timashevsk city earlier this week. In that complex 98 pigs deaths had been registered.

According to the region’s veterinary services officials, pig deaths also were registered in several nearby private farms, and there is suspicion that the animals also died from ASF.” Read more.

By Pumza Fihlani – “South Africa’s ostrich farmers are struggling to cope after thousands of their birds were culled during one of the country’s worst outbreaks of bird flu.

Exports to Europe – the biggest market for South Africa’s ostrich meat – have crashed since the EU banned the import of the low-cholesterol meat to stop the virus spreading.

Some farmers have been able to salvage their business through exporting ostrich feathers to South America – they are used in the colourful Rio Carnival.

Oudtshoorn, a town about 450km (279 miles) from Cape Town, is the heartland of the country’s ostrich industry.

Highgate Ostrich Show Farm is empty, apart from a few workers cleaning the yard there is no-one else in sight.

This is uncharacteristic of the popular tourist farm which is always abuzz with activity.

Hundreds of local and international visitors would normally be queuing to ride trained ostriches, buy luxury ostrich products such as leather and feathers or simply to spend time feeding the birds.

But for the first time in its 80 years, there are no ostriches for visitors to see – they have all been culled.

‘When the virus was discovered on our farm a few months ago the authorities came and took away all our birds,’ Arenhold Hooper tells me.

His ostriches were among 40,000 ostriches killed in the area, believed to either have the virus or have come into contact with infected birds.

All the meat was thrown away.” Read more.

“Around 2,000 poultry birds have died in the past few weeks on a farm in Meghalaya’s East Garo Hills district, fuelling fears of bird flu, even as a general alert was sounded in the area, officials said on Monday.

A government official said 2,000 chickens died an unnatural death in a government-run poultry farm at Williamnagar, the district headquarter of East Garo Hills, about 312 km west of Meghalaya’s state capital Shillong.

‘We have sent samples for laboratory tests to Bhopal-based High Security Animal Disease Laboratory for confirmation. We don’t know for sure if the poultry deaths were due to bird flu,’ Praveen Bakshi, the district magistrate, told the media.

Initially, he said the government has sent samples to a Guwahati-based Laboratory, but it did not yield any results.

‘The district administration has taken all precautionary measures and rapid response team has been geared up to take action in case the laboratory confirms bird flu,’ Bakshi said.

He said a seven kilometre radius of the area where the birds died has been kept under surveillance.

Meanwhile, the district administration and health and family welfare and veterinary officials are scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss on the unnatural deaths of birds at the farm.” Source – The Asian Age.

By Peter Matambanadzo – “Mana Pools — MORE than 165 animals in Mana Pools National Park in the lower Zambezi Valley have died due to an anthrax outbreak over the past few weeks.

Parks and Wildlife Management Authority public relations manager Ms Caroline Washaya-Moyo confirmed the death of elephants, hippos, buffaloes and kudus.

The most affected are Chikwenya and Sapi areas, which are located on the shoreline as well as islands near Mana Pools.

‘Our Chinhoyi office has since confirmed the anthrax outbreak following the death of the animals in Mana Pools.

‘The Authority engaged the Vet Offices who later collected samples from hippos for lab testing. The lab test confirmed that 88 hippopotamus died of anthrax,’ said Ms Washaya-Moyo.

The cause of the death of 45 Buffaloes, 30 elephants and two Kudus, she said, was yet to be established but starvation or anthrax was suspected. Ms Washaya-Moyo said the situation was under control.

A veterinary officer in the Department of Veterinary Services (Wildlife), Dr Chris Foggin also confirmed the outbreak.

‘A number of animals have died, but we have visited the area and we sealed it off and we are burning the carcasses to prevent any further spread, an action well considered now that the lab reports confirmed anthrax as the culprit,’ said Dr Foggin.” Source – AllAfrica.com.

“SEOUL, Jan. 7 (Yonhap) — South Korea’s farm ministry said Saturday that bird flu did not cause the spike in dead ducks at a local poultry farm earlier in the week.

‘Detailed tests using hemagglutinin showed no traces of the virulent H5N1 avian influenza virus,’ it said.

The farm in Icheon some 80 kilometers east of Seoul reported 110 dead birds from Sunday through Tuesday, causing local quarantine authorities to seal off the immediate area and prevent movement of all birds.

Vehicle and human traffic were also subject to decontamination to prevent the spread of the disease.

The agriculture ministry said it has lifted all restrictions imposed for the past few days and withdrawn its quarantine team.

The latest false alarm comes as Seoul has been carefully monitoring its poultry farms for signs of another bird flu outbreak. The country reported containing an outbreak in April of last year after the birds started dying off en masse in late December 2010. This forced the government to cull more than 6.27 million birds across the country.

Prior to the 2010-2011 outbreak, South Korea was hit by avian influenza three times, with the last case occurring in April 2008 and resulting in the culling of 3.45 million birds. Other outbreaks took place in the winter months of 2003-2004 and 2006-2007.” Source – Yonhap News Agency.

By MATTHEW BROWN – “BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — White-tailed deer populations in parts of eastern Montana and elsewhere in the Northern Plains could take years to recover from a devastating disease that killed thousands of the animals in recent months, wildlife officials and hunting outfitters said.

In northeast Montana, officials said 90 percent or more of whitetail have been killed along a 100-mile stretch of the Milk River from Malta to east of Glasgow. Whitetail deaths also have been reported along the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers in western North Dakota and eastern Montana and scattered sites in Wyoming, South Dakota and eastern Kansas.

The deaths are being attributed to an outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease, or EHD. Transmitted by biting midges, EHD causes internal bleeding that can kill infected animals within just a few days.

‘I’ve been here 21 years and it was worse than any of us here have seen,’ said Pat Gunderson, the Glasgow-based regional supervisor for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. ‘Right now it’s going to take a few years to get things back to even a moderate population.’

In North Dakota, state wildlife chief Randy Kreil described the outbreak as the most extensive and deadly in two decades.

Mule deer, bighorn sheep, elk and pronghorn also are susceptible to EHD, but it is particularly damaging to whitetail herds, animal health experts said. Livestock can be infected but typically show few symptoms.

Researchers say the virus that causes EHD does not infect people and there is no risk of eating or handling infected deer,

More precise estimates of the number of whitetail killed are expected after agencies conduct winter population counts and survey fall hunter success.” Read more.