Panic drives avian flu response– dogs blamed, but never had disease
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:
BUCHAREST, ISTANBUL– Fears that the H5N1 avian flu virus
had spread to Romania “may be wrong,” the London Daily Mail reported
on October 10.
A suspected outbreak in Turkey was likewise unconfirmed.
Amid rising public panic, the veterinary authorities of both
Turkey and Romania nonetheless ordered the immediate slaughter of
tens of thousands of domestic fowl to keep the presumed outbreak from
spreading.
“In western Turkey, military police set up roadblocks at the
entrance to a village near Balikesir,” reported C. Onur Ant of
Associated Press. “A two-mile radius was quarantined as
veterinarians and other officials began destroying poultry at two
turkey farms. Other fowl–including pigeons–and stray dogs in the
village would also be killed as a precaution, said Nihat Pakdil,
undersecretary of Turkey’s Agriculture Ministry.”
Pakdil did not explain why dogs would be targeted, since
there is no record of dogs ever contracting or carrying H5N1, but a
new national humane law making neuter/return rather than killing dogs
the official prescribed method of animal control has been widely
defied on the pretext of disease control. The most recent of many
dog massacres reported since the new law took effect in mid-2005 was
discovered in Aliaga, Izmir, on October 6, where 24 dead dogs were
found in a wooded public park.