The Animal Ambulance Brabant Noord-Oost is being flooded with reports of bird flu. According to Rens van Lieshout of the Dierenambulance, there are hundreds of reports per day. The foundation has to turn out dozens of times a day for a bird with possible bird flu.
According to Van Lieshout, the situation is not good. He mainly receives a lot of reports from the area around the Maas and from larger places such as Den Bosch. In the case of the Maas, it mainly concerns water birds, reports from the city are about pigeons and songbirds, for example. “It’s worse than usual,” says Van Lieshout. The crowds are often seasonal. In the spring, Van Lieshout knows, it often concerns young birds and ducks. In the autumn it often concerns large groups of birds that are engaged in bird migration.
The animal ambulance can handle a large part of the calls by giving advice. If the animals are already dead, the ambulance will not come. It is the task of the municipality to clean up dead birds.
Weird Symptoms
According to van Lieshout, it is quite possible to recognize whether birds have bird flu or not. “They show strange symptoms. They are unstable, turn their heads, are disoriented and you can usually approach them. That is not normal behavior for birds, because they are shy of people.”
If the ambulance does come, the employees adhere to a protocol for bird flu. For example, there is a special ‘calamity ambulance’, specially designed for the transport of animals with bird flu. The animals then go to the nearest vet, who has them put to sleep. The Animal Ambulance Brabant-Noordoost is active in nineteen municipalities in Brabant and a part of the south of Gelderland.
It is striking that the animal ambulance in West Brabant hardly receives any reports of bird flu. This concerns a single report “And not even every week”, says a spokesperson. West Brabant takes care of the six westernmost municipalities of Brabant. According to Van Lieshout, this can be explained by the fact that there is more bird flu in some areas than in other places. “We’ve had outbreaks here recently and there is also a ban on transportation.”
Problems for a long time
Bird flu has been raging in our country for a year now. Unique, since the virus usually disappears in the summer, only to reappear later in the year. Yet there seems to be no end to the bird flu wave and the national confinement obligation, which has been in effect since the beginning of this month. Last Thursday, 25,000 laying hens were culled in Neerkant.
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