Kill the birds!

Guy told me tonight that the government is planning on killing migratory birds BIGTIME next spring as a step against bird flu.

I told him I thought it was tinfoil-hat rumor.

Actually, can you imagine this "Gang that can't shoot straight" trying to kill millions of birds when they can't catch one tall, scraggly Saudi.

Anybody know anything more about this rumor?

That would turn the hunting vote completely against them.

Sounds pretty tinfoil to me though.

....expect birdshot to the face of about a quarter of a million elderly lawyers as collateral damage.

these guys love their ray-guns.

of Falluja's hospitals; mass slaughter seems to be the only tool at humanity's disposal, it seems, with other species or our own. I'm gettin' that darn sense of apocalypse again!

The Delicate, Plummeting Bodies

A great cry went up from the stockyards and
slaughterhouses, and Death, tired of complaint
and constant abuse, withdrew to his underground garage.
He was still young and his work was a torment.
All over, their power cut, people stalled like street cars.
Their gravity taken away, they began to float.
Without buoyancy, they began to sink. Each person
became a single darkened room. The small hand
pressed firmly against the small of their backs
was suddenly gone and people swirled to a halt
like petals fallen from a flower. Why hurry?
Why get out of bed? People got off subways,
on subways, off subways all at the same stop.
Everywhere clocks languished in antique shops
as their hands composed themselves in sleep.
Without time and decay, people grew less beautiful.
They stopped eating and began to study their feet.
They stopped sleeping and spent weeks following stray dogs.
The first to react were remnants of the church.
They falsified miracles: displayed priests posing
as corpses until finally they sneezed or grew lonely.
Then governments called special elections to choose those
to join the ranks of the volunteer dead: unhappy people
forced to sit in straight chairs for weeks at a time.
Interest soon dwindled. Then the army seized power
and soldiers ran through the street dabbling the living
with red paint. You're dead, they said. Maybe
tomorrow, people answered, today we're just breathing:
look at the sky, look at the color of the grass.
For without Death each color had grown brighter,
At last a committee of businessmen met together,
because with Death gone money had no value.
They went to where Death was waiting in a white room,
and he sat on the floor and looked like a small boy
with pale blond hair and eyes the color of clear water.
In his lap was a red ball heavy with the absence of life.
The businessmen flattered him. We will make you king,
they said. I am king already, Death answered. We will
print your likeness on all the money of the world.
It is there already, Death answered. We adore you
and will not live without you, the businessmen said.
Death said, I will consider your offer.

How Death was restored to his people:

At first the smallest creatures began to die--
bacteria and certain insects. No one noticed. Then fish
began to float to the surface; lizards and tree toads
toppled from sun-warmed rocks. Still no one saw them.
Then birds began tumbling out of the air,
and as sunlight flickered on the blue feathers
of the jay, brown of the hawk, white of the dove,
then people lifted their heads and pointed to the sky
and from the thirsty streets cries of welcome rose up
like a net to catch the delicate and plummeting bodies.

Stephen Dobyns


dp

He likes to drop 'em like flies. But don't send any lawyers with him, unless they are wearing full armour and ballistic clothing.

The big worry with migratory birds is that it'll be brought here by birds coming into Alaska that have wintered in Asia, and the Alaskan coast is just WAY too long to BEGIN to try a cull of that magnitude.

Also, birds typically migrate several thousand feet up, beyond the reach of shotguns.

I think it would be logistically impossible.

will be the name given to this slaughter.

(I'd post a sarcasm icon here but in the Age of BushPutinism, we all know that this or something like this WOULD be the name given to a wholesale bird slaughter)

The only thing that scares me about this bird-flu-hype, is the thought of my small flock of chickens being quarantined or confiscated, or otherwise messed with by the government.

NAIS is a big deal with poultry farmers. I got this from www.the-coop.org

National Animal Identification System (NAIS) Fact Sheet

1) USDA proposes surveillance of every property where even a single animal of any livestock species is kept; and to require, at a minimum, the radio-frequency tagging of every animal through the National Animal Identification System, or NAIS. (Standards, pp.3-4, 6, 17-18)

2) NAIS proposes forced registration in a huge, permanent federal database of individual citizen's real property (the homes and farms where animals are kept) and personal property (the animals themselves). (Standards, pp.8-13; Plan, pp. 8, 12-13.)

3) NAIS proposes that an animal owner will have to report, within 24 hours, any missing animal, any missing tag, the sale of an animal, the death of an animal, the slaughter of an animal, the purchase of an animal, the movement of an animal off the farm or homestead, the movement of an animal onto the farm or homestead. (Standards, pp. 13, 18-19, 21)

4) NAIS proposes that animal owners will have to pay the costs of registration and surveillance of their homes, farms, and livestock. ("here will be costs to producers," Plan, p. 11; "private funding will be required...Producers will identify their animals and provide necessary records to the databases... All groups will need to provide labor...", Plan, p.14)

5) VIOLATIONS: Persons in violation of the regulations once they become manditory will first be issued warnings from NCDA (North Carolina Department of Agriculture) to register their farm for the program. Persons who do not register after receiving a warning will be in violation and subject to penalties as provided by the NAIS standards as adopted by NC, and are expected to be $1000 per day.

6) Currently the USDA's National Animal Identification Plan (NAIS) is voluntary. The plan is slated to become mandatory by January 2008.


WHAT YOU CAN DO

Read the Draft Standards Plan and Draft Strategic Plan
http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/index.shtml

Compiled from http://www.usda.gov/nais

I hope I followed the DU posting guidelines correctly.
--quantessd

http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/tips.html


Currently, the disease is following human routes, not those of migratory birds. But whatever.

If you have birds, up above is the link to a site posting the Ag Guidelines.

the evidence they are uncovering is that the "avian" flu has very little to do with migratory birds. If the birds get very sick, they might be able to fly fifteen or twenty miles, but that's about it.

In point of fact, the cases of this disease are showing up along major roadways, railways and national boundaries, and in workers within the poultry industry, including some engaged in the sick/dead bird cleanup.

What this indicates is that these diseases are originating in and because of the mass poultry housing practices, with thousands upon thousands of birds squished into the industrial, unhealthy operations, resulting in bird to bird, intractable, untreatable infections. The casual use of antibiotics to cover for lousy practices, the smuggling of infected birds, and shipping of unhealthy birds to market, in an attempt to avoid financial losses are the driving forces behind the crisis.

Add in the fact that this government, as with many others, has a vested interest in keeping the population constantly in fear in order to manipulate them, as well as the overwhelming commitment to business at any price, has engendered a "perfect storm."

It's not, apparently, migratory fowl producing these problems, it's the lousy bird farming practices. In a word GREED!

...who developed Tamiflu, which *surprise* is the primary recommended medication to fight avian flu.

Of course, when it jumps to human, we'll need immediate mass production of vaccines...which we (of course) are not at all ramped up for and ready to go into production.

They'll just hand out Rummy's Tamiflu, which only shortens the length of the flu, and many poor who cannot afford it, or Medical folk who are in bondage to lengthy red tape, will perhaps die off en masse.

Sounds like things are going on schedule for Rumsfeld's "Ministry of Death."

There are too many serious birders in this country that the outcry would make the port fiasco look like a love fest. Ain't gonna happen.