"AVIAN INFLUENZA: Are Wild Birds to Blame?"

Read the full article in Science.

"Evidence implicating wild birds is starting to convince even some of the doubters. "Until about 2 months ago, I was pretty skeptical on whether wild birds were playing a role," says David Suarez, a virologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Georgia. "But now I feel that there is much stronger evidence that wild birds are spreading the virus." What changed his mind, he says, was the death of 100 or so ducks, gulls, geese, and swans from H5N1 at a remote lake in Mongolia that he believes can't be explained by human activities. And, he and others add, in an unexpected twist, it's beginning to look as though the culprits might not be the long-suspected migratory waterfowl but another yet-unidentified wild species."