THOUSANDS of ducks on a Costa Brava farm will have to be put to sleep now Spain's first outbreak of bird 'flu in the open air has been detected.
The free-range avian farm in Sant Gregori (Girona province) is home to 17,300 ducks, and the H5N8 virus has been found in some of them.
This means that according to standard procedure, Catalunya's minister of agriculture, Meritxell Serret, has had to order them to be put to sleep, and ducks and chickens on six farms within a three-kilometre radius have been contained.
But the minister says she would not rule out that the creatures on the Sant Gregori farm could have been infected by wild birds from the Aiguamolls wetlands nearby.
Already, in neighbouring France, three million ducks – around 8% of the national population of these farm-bred birds – have been put down after the avian influenza virus was found in free-range agricultural holdings in November.
The virus has now reached Girona, which borders with France, having been firstly found four days ago in a wild swan discovered in a very poor condition of health in the Aiguamolls park.
Serret says the H5N8 virus found does not affect humans and no case of contagion has been reported other than in birds anywhere in the world as yet.
Hunting of wild birds has been banned within a 10-kilometre radius of the affected farm, and up to 40 birds of different species are thought to have died in the last week from the H5N8 virus in the area.
Farmers who lose birds either directly through avian 'flu or through their having to be put to sleep to prevent infection will receive compensation for economic loss.
The ducks on the Sant Gregori farm were bred to be fattened up and then killed to make pâté.
