EXPERTS worry chook flu in seabirds may trigger issues for coast-dwelling Scottish birds of prey.
A report from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds final week revealed that avian influenza had taken an enormous toll on Scotland’s seabird populations.
Scotland’s inhabitants of nice skuas – colloquially often known as “bonxies” – have declined by 76% since 2021.
Gannets and roseate terns have additionally been severely impacted by chook flu.
Hannah Sloan, a falconer, says issues could come up as raptors normally take the chance to scavenge on the lifeless to preserve vitality.
“Bird flu transfers really quickly and can transfer even if the infected animal is dead,” she stated.
“So, if a bird of prey eats the seabird that has avian influenza, it then gets influenza and dies.
“It can also happen if a mammal predator eats a seabird and then dies of avian influenza and is then scavenged on by a bird of prey so it’s basically through the food chain usually.”
She says much less is understood in regards to the affect of avian influenza on birds of prey as their reclusive nature makes it tough to review how the illness impacts them.
“They’re solitary,” she defined. “If they get bird flu and they die in the wild, they would most likely never be found as they would be in woodland areas or outwith where people really frequent and if they were to die it’s most likely that there’s another scavenger around that would eat it anyway.”
Sloan says it is vital that additional analysis that’s tailor-made to the chook’s behaviour is carried out sooner or later.
“Seabirds are colony birds, meaning they die en masse, so that’s a bit hard to not notice when you’ve got hundreds of birds lying on a beach dead – they’re obviously going to be tested, but if a bird no-one knows dies, it isn’t going to be tested,” she stated.
“It’s definitely something that needs to be looked into before there is another outbreak of avian influenza and it does affect conservation of birds of prey.”
NatureScot revealed a report in June revealing that the breeding success of birds of prey – notably eagles – could also be impacted by avian flu.
White-tailed eagles appeared to have been probably the most impacted in coastal areas, which suggests a possible hyperlink between contaminated seabirds and the eagles which will have scavenged upon them.
The organisation now says it’s engaged on repeat evaluation of its earlier report back to see whether or not there are any persevering with points.
Duncan Orr-Ewing, head of species and land administration at RSPB Scotland stated: “In the past couple of years – certainly last year – there were quite a lot of records of young sea eagles – birds at the point of fledging – dying in the nest and these birds were tested and confirmed to be positive for avian influenza.
“So, it doesn’t appear to affect the adult sea eagles but it’s affecting the young birds in the nest and of course, for the young birds in the nest, one of the main prey items of sea eagles is seabirds, meaning there may be a transmission issue there.”
He says that birds of prey are likely to die inside a day or so of contracting avian influenza as a consequence of how debilitating it’s for them – particularly chicks.
Orr-Ewing added: “We have 170 breeding pairs of sea eagles in Scotland and last year – less so inland but more on the West Coast areas where the birds are feeding on seabirds – there was big mortality in chicks, so, effectively, there was very little productivity in that year.
“So, we’ve lost a year’s productivity to a large extent, and large parts of the sea eagle West Coast range, which is where most of the pairs are, so that will delay the expansion of the population of sea eagles – which is one of our rarest breeding raptor species.”
