Photo of the week #76 | The birds-Pelicans

Photo of the week #76 | The birds

I have never seen a pelican so close. Their small flock is located on the edge of an artificial reservoir in the Austrian Schörnbrunn Zoo. Unfortunately, the number of birds has significantly decreased.

In the life of birds, dramas and tragedies also happen, one of them happened here five years ago (in 2017).
Then the zoo of the Austrian capital lost a flock of pelicans. Twenty birds had to be killed because of the threat of bird flu.
At first, employees fought for Dalmatian pelicans, their poultry house was closed for quarantine when they found out that one of the birds was sick.
A special tent was even built for the flock, but these measures did not help and all pelicans with signs of illness had to be euthanized.

Location: Austria, Vienna, Schönbrunn

reference:

Avian influenza (lat. Grippus avium), classical avian plague, is an acute infectious viral disease of birds, characterized by damage to the digestive and respiratory organs, and a high mortality rate of about 56%. Different strains of the avian influenza virus can cause 10 to 100% deaths among those who become ill and infect one to three species of birds simultaneously. The natural reservoir of the virus is migratory birds, most often wild ducks. In wild bird populations, unlike domestic birds, resistance to the influenza virus is high. Avian influenza was first identified in Italy over a hundred years ago.