Cadman

Excellent. As a wildfowler/amateur naturalist was delighted to see a wildfowling club leading this pioneering move. Well done.

What a great thread this is. Polite constructive debate with some really helpful views. Thanks to all who have posted. Some have expressed concerns about eating infected wildfowl. Quite rightly too as this is why we go wildfowling. The Food Standards Agency has stated - this is from the Gov site - that on the basis of current scientific evidence AI poses a very low food safety risk for UK consumers. Properly cooked poultry and poultry products including eggs are safe to eat. By consumers I assume they mean people buying and eating meat from supermarkets, butchers and farm shops etc. No mention of eating wild birds. Properly cooked is subjective, we are all aware of the risk of eating under cooked poultry, however a duck or goose is at its best underdone, thourough cooking especially if you like roast wildfowl renders them tough I think. The estuary where I go wildfowling locally, has become very public in recent years and we have had cases of AI and birds washing up. I do worry about the damage that could be caused for my local club by public perception of what we do. I agree with Dave that this goes for all users too. Duck all sums it up nicely in his last post.

It was announced today that WWT Martin Mere has an outbreak of AI. Does anybody know how many pinkfoot are there yet? They closed on Friday to the public and are trying to contain the virus to stop the spread. So I would assume they have found it in their captive birds and are taking precautions so as not to infect the migratory wildfowl - especially pinkfeet - that visit the site. It states that all infected birds on the premises will be humanely culled.

Is this a fact? I assume that by artificially feed you mean with barley or wheat. I've never seen the barnacle geese eating anything other than grass around the Solway. Would you consider a fed flight pond or feeding pheasants to attract paying guns to perhaps cause unnatural densities of birds.

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-sunday-telegraph/20200621/281586652853371 You can read the article here

Agreed Jdog BASC have requested individuals to help out here: https://basc.org.uk/gl/