After killing millions of chickens and ducks across Asia, bird flu is feared to have jumped to some exotic species, possibly killing a leopard and cranes in Thailand and pheasants in Taiwan.
A zoo in northern Thailand has even isolated two healthy giant pandas over fears they may catch the disease.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization warned that the disease -- which has killed 14 people in Vietnam and five in Thailand -- still has not been controlled in several Asian countries.
"Cambodia, China, Indonesia and Laos continue to report new outbreaks in poultry," FAO said.
Around 80 million chickens have been slaughtered across Asia, excluding China, to curb bird flu's spread, it said.
Indian authorities yesterday they plan to hold an emergency meeting in New Delhi tomorrow of health and agricultural officials from seven South Asian nations to draft a strategy to prevent the spread of bird flu in the highly populous region.
In Thailand, Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Prapat Panyachatraksa said on Friday that tests showed that a clouded leopard died of bird flu on Jan. 27 at Khao Khiew Zoo in Chonburi province, 70km south of Bangkok.
The World Health Organization said that if confirmed it could be the first known case of the disease found in an exotic animal or a member of the cat family.
Two separate tests showed the leopard had succumbed to bird flu, but the exact strain was unclear, Prapat said. Officials were awaiting the results of a third test.
A zoo official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the leopard might have eaten chicken infected with bird flu.
Prapat also announced that tests were being carried out on more than 200 cranes that died at Bungboraphet Bird Park in Nakhon Sawan province, 210km north of Bangkok.
At the Chiang Mai Zoo in Thailand's north, workers were trying to keep wild roosters and hens from coming close to the endangered pandas that have been rented from China for 10 years for US$250,000, the zoo's director Tanapat Pongpamorn said.
"Those chickens were born in the wild. They roam the zoo everywhere," he said. "We're doing our best."
In Taiwan, officials ordered a pet-bird farm in Tainan County to kill about 300 birds, including Swinhoe's pheasants -- a once-endangered indigenous bird with a short white crest and a blue head.
The culling was ordered after test results showed some of the birds were infected with H5N2, a less dangerous strain of bird flu that has not jumped to humans.
Ten governments in the region have been dealing with strains of bird flu since South Korean officials reported an outbreak in December. Some Asian countries, as well as the US, are being hit with a milder bird flu strain not thought to pose a danger to people.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
RSS