Disease which killed T. rex ‘spreads to birds via feeders’
A parasitic disease which may once have killed the mighty tyrannosaurus rex has wiped out hundreds of thousands of greenfinches in the UK – and ornithologists believe garden bird feeders could be spreading the disease.
The disease, Trichomoniasis or “trike”, causes birds’ throats to swell up until they are unable to eat and starve to death. Evidence of a similar disease have been found in the tyrannosaurus rex jawbones.
Some 20 percent of the UK’s greenfinch population is estimated to have been wiped out, with 500,000 dying in 2007 alone, Rob Robinson of the British Trust for Ornithology told the New Scientist magazine.
Now ornithologists are due to gather at a conference in London to discuss the impact of bird feeders which are also suspected of playing a key role in an epidemic of the eye infection mycoplasmal conjunctivitis in the US which has wiped out 60 percent of house finches.
Experiments suggest the birds may pick up bacteria when they make contact with bird feeders with their beaks to peck at seeds – although ornithologist Jim Reynolds of the University of Birmingham told the New Scientist that more research was needed.
“We should have a huge amount of data, but we don’t,” Reynolds said.
Garden feeders play a key role in helping bird populations survive tough winter conditions when food is scarce. Robinson said that only one or two species appeared to have been affected by the diseases and that dozens more species were being safely fed.
The risk of infection is not the only issue on the agenda at the conference with opponents of feeders arguing that they provide a form of “junk food” on which birds become dependent. Others argue that the feeders merely supplement a natural diet, with most birds still digging for worms to feed to their chicks.
[...] Disease which killed T. rex ’spreads to birds via feeders’ | Zoogle News [...]