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Sudden Chicken Die-Off in Samarinda, East Kalimantan
Samarinda - Citizens of Samarinda, particularly those living in RT 03, 04, 09, and 13 of Mugirejo administrative village in North Samarinda subdistrict, have been anxious in the past few days because hundreds of chickens in their neighborhood had suddenly died.
Within the last month 196 chickens have been discovered dead. In RT 03 there were 50 birds, RT 09 there were 100 birds, RT 13 there 40 birds, and in RT 04 there were 6 birds that suddenly died.
The finding rose suspicion in people living in the neighborhood, they are worried their environment is no longer safe. Some people suspect the chickens died from avian influenza.
Quick action was taken by the people by destroying the dead chickens without waiting for officers from the local Livestock Service Office. “We had to manually destroy the chickens ourselves because nobody from the local Service Office came over,” said Slamet, citizen of RT 03, Mugirejo administrative village, North Samarinda, on Monday (24/1/2011). Slamet said, in destroying the birds, people burned and buried the dead chickens in a safe place.
Muslim, a citizen of RT 03, regretted the lack of action from the government in response to the sudden chicken death case in his neighborhood. “In RT 03, we had 50 chickens suddenly dying within the last month. We had to destroy the chickens ourselves,” said Muslim.
Citizens do not know for sure what is causing this abnormally high mortality, but they suspect avian influenza may be behind the sudden deaths. Mugirejo citizens have reported the case to the Livestock Service Office of Samarinda.
Head of the Livestock Service Office of Samarinda City, Rini Purwanti, confirmed the office have received the report. She said they have sent officers in the avian influenza control division to conduct field inspection.
“Today disease control officers have been sent to the field to follow up on the case. If later we find avian influenza in the samples submitted for testing, we will depopulate the area,” said Rini this afternoon. (Information from Persda Network, Editor: Glori K. Wadrianto)
Source : Kompas