Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We recently moved to Phoenix and have noticed, what seems to us, to be an unusually high bird deaths around our yard. In two months time there have been 9 mourning / turtle doves, and 1 hummer found dying or dead. These all seemed to have died from natural causes as carcases are intact. Food and water has been abundant and temperatures have been moderate warm 80s-90s.

After the lastest bird death 3 days ago, we thought possibly these birds were dying from West Nile Virus. But then these birds, from reports, are not suppose to be as susceptable.

When discussing this with an online acquaintence, he said he (and the rest of this paragraph is his quote)....
"....recently attended a seminar presented by a wildlife biologist who has been active in research re. West Nile Virus. He indicated that a broad list of bird species have been found dead with WNV, and even specified hummingbirds. He suggested that essentially every known species of bird is susceptible. He presented an amazing statistic: at least 19 million birds died of the W N Virus in California during 2004! The speaker is on the staff of the Center for Environmental Studies at Univ. Cal. Riverside."

Now with this very alarming problem of WNV, if that is in fact what is killing these wild birds around our yard, how can we protect our flock of (indoor) parrots and cockatiels, other than the obvious, to keep doors and windows shut so the carrier-mosquitoes don't get in?

Also why aren't there WNV vaccines for pet birds, dogs, humans, like there is for horses (which BTW seems to be doing a great job in protecting them)?

Most avian vets feel that parrots are rather unlikely to contract the disease, and if they do they`re not as likely to die from it as other species (ie, crows and such). Keep in mind that a healthy pet parrot has a much better chance of fighting off the disease than any wild bird. Wild birds often have other things their immune systems are struggling to deal with, such as parasites. Plus they don`t benefit from avian medicine to support them as they heal.

If you`re concerned, there are always measures you can take to combat the problem. Don`t allow any standing pools of water in your area. You could even go so far as to install bat-houses on the eaves of your house to help keep the mosquito population down. And of course, don`t take your birds outside at dawn or dusk, when mosquitos are most active. It`s not much of a concern at noon.

There has been some work to develop an avian vaccine, based on the horse-vaccine. It is available, I believe. But it does carry certain risks, by my understanding.

There has been two more bird deaths over the weekend, putting the number up to a dozen now. This includes 11 doves and 1 hummer over the past two months. I'm only aware of bird deaths in our own yard...don't know if neighbors have had them too but suspect they might. We moved in 2 months ago and haven't met our new neighbors...and besides... we don't speak their language.

An acquaintence in central California said all of his backyard bluebird group has died off.

IF this is due to WNV, it is a much more serious problem than we realize...OR much more serious problem than what authorities want us to know.

It is certainly going to have disasterous affects on many of our wild bird populations, especially the endangered birds. This in turn will affect the ecosystems those birds live in, I`m sure. I don`t think the scientists reasearching WNV has tried to hide that fact at all.

I don`t think many people or their pets (even pet birds) will be directly affected by the disease, though. From what I`ve read and heard from avian vets, healthy people and healthy pet birds are unlikely to contract the disease, let alone die from it.