Feb 21 (Reuters) – Bird influenza has actually killed 10s of countless birds, primarily pelicans, and a minimum of 716 sea lions in safeguarded locations throughout Peru, the authorities said, as the H5N1 pressure spreads out throughout the area.
Peru taped its very first case of the infection in November in birds in the north of the nation. Since then it has actually killed 63,000 birds, according to federal government information.
“We have actually likewise taped because mid-January the uncommon death of lots of sea lions, up until now we have about 716 dead sea lions in 7 secured natural locations of the coast,” said Roberto Gutierrez, head of monitoring of the National Service of Natural Protected Areas.
Since the start of 2021, bird influenza has actually wrecked the world, eliminating more than 200 million birds due to illness or mass culling, the World Organization for Animal Health has actually said.
[1/6] An ill pelican sits beside a dead one, on the coasts of the river Camana after Peruvian authorities taped very first cases of bird influenza in November 2022, in Camana, Peru, December 2, 2022. REUTERS/Sebastian Castaneda
In South America, bird influenza cases have actually been identified in Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and just recently in Argentina and Uruguay. In Brazil, the world’s biggest poultry exporter, there are still no verified cases.
In Chile, health authorities recently identified the very first favorable case in marine mammal, a sea lion on a beach in the north of the nation.
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The population of sea lions numbered about 110,000 in Peru in 2020, primarily in the seaside area of Ica and the Paracas nature reserve, according to Oceana, a worldwide organization committed to securing oceans.
In current weeks, teams from Peru’s National Forestry and Wildlife Service, in protective plastic fits, gloves and masks, have actually gathered and buried numerous sea lions from a number of beaches along Peru’s main coast.
“What we keep in mind at first begun with pelicans in 2015 is now impacting these marine mammals,” Javier Jara, a vet with the service, said.
Reporting by Carlos Valdez Reuters Television and Marco Aquino; Editing by Alison Williams
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