A pectoral sandpiper became the first bird
tested for avian flu in Alaska in 2006 on
the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge
Credit: Doug O’Harra
Scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks will receive $3.8 million to track down the mysterious ecology of bird flu in Alaska.
The study is part of a larger investigation of influenza viruses with the potential to trigger world-wide pandemics — including the deadly H5N1 avian influenza still centered in Asia and Africa.
âOur initial focus is on known avian reservoirs of influenza-A viruses such as waterfowl and shorebirds,â said Jonathan Runstadler, assistant professor of biology and wildlife with the Institute of Arctic Biology and the lead avian flu investigator at UAF. âHowever, little is known about the role of the environment and about other groups of birds in the maintenance and evolution of influenza viruses worldwide.”
UAF is a partner in an $18.5 million award made to the UCLA School of Public Health by the National Institutes of Health to create a regional Center for Rapid Influenza Surveillance and Research, or CRISAR, one of of six national centers getting launched this year.
Under the grant, a small army of biologists and wildlife scientists will examine at least 20,000 wild animals, migrating birds and domestic stock along the Pacific Flyway of North America in Alaska, Washington and California every year. Additional work — often involving the capture of birds in nets and swabbing their anal (cloacal) cavities — will be conducted in far eastern Russia, Japan, Cambodia, Laos and Mongolia.
