Posted on 10/17/2005 3:03:50 AM PDT by beyond the sea
SOFIA (Reuters) - A flock of Bulgarian circus doves was barred from returning home on Thursday because of an outbreak of avian flu in Turkey.
The 20 doves had been on tour in Bulgaria's southern Black Sea neighbor for several months with the Balkanski & Sons Circus as part of a menagerie that also includes horses and Siberian tigers.
But they were refused re-entry after Sofia banned imports of live birds and poultry from Turkey and its northern neighbor Romania after both reported cases of bird flu last weekend.
"This is really unfortunate for the circus. They had permission to take the animals out of the country, but the time of their return coincided with the ban," border control inspector Atanas Mihailov told Reuters.
"The owner will probably find someone to take care of the birds in Turkey until the ban is lifted."
Bulgaria -- seen as a potential next destination for the flu because it lies on similar migratory bird routes as Romania and Turkey -- has stepped up checks at borders and farms near its coastal and Danube river wetlands to forestall any outbreak.
Earlier on Thursday, the European Union's executive said the flu discovered in Turkey was the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, which has killed more than 60 people and caused the death of millions of birds in Asia. Tests are still pending on Romania's outbreak.
One of the sadder aspects of this story is all the months of training these doves put in to perfect their trapeze act.
Thanks for the ping.
Isn't this migration season in Europe as well as America?
Anyone know where else we can expect incidences?
I believe so............ and it's always that season in Mexico.
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