Reopen Mai Po – H5N1 is not a threat there

I refer to the long and yet insubstantial letter from Dr Mary Chow, for director of agriculture, fisheries and conservation ("Public health is main concern during closure of bird reserves"), which sought to justify closures of Mai Po as a result of isolated cases of dead birds being found, and testing positive for H5N1 bird flu.

For five years, I have been active in striving to highlight the fact that wild birds do not sustain and spread virulent forms of H5N1. Overwhelmingly, birds that catch H5N1 sicken, and die: which might be summarised as "Dead Ducks Don't Fly". Yet there have been considerable efforts to show otherwise, and to blame wild birds for spreading flu; and remarkably little effort to investigate the role of the poultry industry, including extensive poultry smuggling.

As Dr Chow is aware, yet many officials and industry people are loathe to admit, highly pathogenic – highly lethal – forms of bird flu are products of the poultry industry. The virulent strains of H5N1 of concern evolved in the poultry industry – particularly in factory farming conditions that are ideally suited to evolving deadly diseases; the poultry industry has sustained H5N1, despite eradication efforts.

Hence, this "bird flu" is something of a misnomer: H5N1 would be better termed "poultry flu". There is justification for measures to limit spread within the poultry industry, particularly in crowded farms and markets rather than backyards. However, measures such as the recent closure of Mai Po because of a single dead swallow being found outside the reserve are over-reacting, and not based on science.

Extensive testing at Mai Po and – I believe – worldwide has yet to find even one apparently healthy wild bird with virulent H5N1: the Dead Ducks Don't Fly principle holds. So when all birds at Mai Po look healthy, they surely are healthy. Dr Chow notes the reserve closure would minimise human contact with wild birds and their faecal droppings. Yet I have been visiting Mai Po for some 23 years, and not once come into contact with a wild bird there; nor am I prone to touching their droppings – or eating them, as flu is not contracted through skin.

The closure decision would appear political – perhaps showing the poultry industry it is not being singled out. It not only stopped visits to the reserve in the short-term, and hit WWF-Hong Kong financially, but also contributed to undue notions that the natural world is somehow scary: we already have too many Hongkongers who are afraid of creatures like butterflies, and even nervous regarding trees. Given the "Conservation" in its name, the AFCD should be doing all it can to reverse such notions, and to stand up for wild birds and science.

It is good the government is conducting a review of the overall risk; I hope science and commonsense will prevail. I hope, too, the government will indeed work closely with WWF-HK on this front.