Virus Threatens NZ Parrots

[zooboy28]

Potential disaster for native species conservation:

Virus threatens NZ parrots - science | Stuff.co.nz

A potentially fatal disease that attacks parrots' immune systems is threatening two native species in New Zealand.

The beak and feather disease virus (BFDV) was first discovered in Australia and has since spread throughout the world, largely due to legal and illegal pet trading.

A collaborative study on the virus by the University of Canterbury started after the disease was found in New Zealand's red-fronted parakeets on Little Barrier Island in 2008.

Researchers have since detected the disease in invasive Australian Eastern rosella in Auckland and yellow-crowned parakeets in Fiordland.

The virus' strains in the South and North Islands are different.

Canterbury University's Dr Arvind Varsani, one of the co-ordinators of the study, said the discovery of the virus in New Zealand was ''scary'' given the Department of Conservation's translocation plans for birds.

''A lot of this information is going to be very important for DOC. Now they know at least that a zone is infected. We do not want to lose our birds to that zone.''

Dr Varsani said researchers have no idea if there were any more strains of the disease in New Zealand.

''The more sampling we do, the more information we'll get.''

More than 780 birds of seven threatened and endangered New Zealand parrot species were tested for the virus for the study - the first comprehensive attempt to systematically screen the birds.

Dr Varsani said it was a huge task to sample each and every bird, but researchers would continue to work hard to screen more.

BFDV easily moves across hosts, weakening the immune system. A lot of birds succumb to infections, and in severe cases they can lose their feathers and have deformities.

In Australia, the base infection rate was 10 per cent and the bird population was still in check. However, in Africa it was 50 per cent for some species.

''That's when conservation management needs to come in. I think here at the moment, we are pretty much at an early stage to start to make strategic plans,'' Dr Varsani said.

Researchers from Massey University, University of Auckland, DOC and Auckland Zoo also participated in the study

Its that last line that makes it relevant to this forum...
But I can't really think of any way this would affect NZ zoos, except for another reason for keeping populations of native species in captivity.

 

[Chlidonias]

this disease is highly-contagious, but only through direct contact I think. However there are loads of wild rosellas in the North Island, including in the grounds of Auckland and Wellington Zoos, so it would be quite possible for it to be distributed from wild to captive birds. In terms of wild native parrots there are unfortunately certain private breeders who believe they are doing a "good thing" by releasing their own captive-bred kakariki into random wild places, which needless to say would be an easy route for the disease to make it into non-rosella territories. The disease reached NZ fairly recently (in the last few decades), probably via smuggled birds although I have something of a recollection that the last legal shipment of birds was said to be the source at one point: the parrots in that lot were found to have some disease while in quarantine - I can't recall if it was this disease or another - and so were ordered either destroyed or re-exported; the birds were officially destroyed but then some species (notably the Derbyans) "mysteriously" appeared on the market many years later.

I posted about the disease back in 2010 (in the Kakapo Season 2009 thread), with this article:
Killer disease hits native parrots - national | Stuff.co.nz

Rare native parrots such as the kakapo and red-fronted parakeet could be at risk from a fatal new disease.

Scientists from Canterbury and Massey universities, fearful that a new strain of beak and feather virus will spread, are calling for stricter screening of the critically endangered parrots. They say it is essential that monitoring and testing are done on birds chosen for breeding, or the disease – for which there is no treatment – will spread further.

The scientists are concerned that the virus will reach the only 123 living kakapo, subject to an extensive monitoring programme on Codfish Island, off Stewart Island, and Anchor Island in Dusky Sound. Red-fronted parakeets are known to live on Anchor Island.

"The real question is not is it [the virus] present or not; the real question is how long before it hits them," ecologist Luis Ortiz-Catedral said.

The eastern rosella, an introduced Australian bird, was known to carry strains of the beak and feather virus. He likened the spread of the virus to the arrival of Europeans in New Zealand and the introduction of influenza.

Although the spread of beak and feather disease could be controlled within populations being bred, its spread in the wild could not. To control the spread, every bird would need to be tested because adult carriers sometimes had no signs of the disease before passing it on to their chicks.

Mr Ortiz-Catedral has been monitoring red-fronted parakeets on Little Barrier Island near Auckland. Blood testing had revealed a new type of the highly infectious, incurable and potentially fatal beak and feather disease, with infected birds having deformed beaks and feather loss. No dead birds had been found on the island, where 25 per cent were found to be infected, but Mr Ortiz-Catedral said a similar virus found in Mauritian parrots raised the risk of death by 80 per cent. He was also worried the virus would spread to the critically endangered orange-fronted parakeet.

Kakapo programme scientist Ron Moorhouse said now the virus had been detected in a wild native species, work was needed to minimise its spread. It was vital that people did not free exotic pet parrots, as they had the potential to spread disease to rare native species.

All 123 kakapo would be tested for the virus in the coming months.

 

[felix]

disease in that shipment was pachecos disease an avian herpes methinks

 

[Chlidonias]

disease in that shipment was pachecos disease an avian herpes methinks

could well have been. I wasn't sure at all if it was the BFDV or not in that case.

 

[Hix]

I had this in my lovebird collection 30 years ago. The insidious thing about it was that my adults all looked fine - apparently they were just carriers, but every clutch that hatched out grew deformed feathers and the chicks would all die a couple of days before fledging (not that they would have successfully fledged).



Hix