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Fowl plague
By Andrew Flohr-Spence
spencand@mscd.edu

When I think back, I remember the distant sound of flapping wings, like the muffled hooves of a far away line of horses, thundering in my direction. At the time, however, I did not even react.

I had gone to the park to get some fresh air and did not expect a brush with death.

Geese! Migratory birds – the main carriers of the infamous bird flu, the H5N1 virus – were flying dangerously close. I picked up their movement through the skeleton of branches only seconds before they flew from behind the trees into the open blue sky above me.

I stood totally exposed – no place to hide – in an open field with a squadron of poison-bearing big birds coming in for attack. I didn’t know whether to run or stay motionless, but as I stood there frozen, the flying biological bombs merely kept flapping their vermin-soaked wings, gliding away from me across the sky.

I know I am lucky to be alive, and yet, something that day changed the way I look at fear.

While fears about terrorism, crime and toddlers smoking pot consume the nation’s attention, this far greater threat is lurking in the shadows, waiting for the day to pounce.

Three times in the past century the normally mundane flu has gone psycho. In 1918, the granddaddy of them all, the “Spanish influenza” killed an estimated 40 million to 50 million people worldwide. Ships were found drifting at sea with everyone aboard dead. In 1957, another 2 million were killed, this time by the “Asian Influenza,” and 1968 saw another 1 million flu victims.

Since 1997, when Hong Kong recorded 18 cases of bird flu, including six deaths, the H5N1 strain has begun positioning itself for a big assault. Migratory birds, geese and other waterfowl infiltrate and mingle with other birds, infecting local populations. Domestic ducks act as the ringleaders, excreting large amounts of virus-infected fluid (killer duck snot), while showing no signs of illness.

The World Health Organization warns that the conditions are ripe for bird flu to make the jump to human flu and cause an international pandemic, which could again kill millions of people around the world. It is only a matter of time.

If you are comparing evils, these figures make war look like a health trend.

Birds are the biggest danger facing humanity, and I should have known not to go near any nature. Immediately, I worried if any bird flu particles had rained down on me from the flapping wings, but then something occurred to me.

If it’s not the virus-secreting ducks, then it’s the plague-ridden squirrels, the killer jaguars, or the starving lions and bears that stumble out of the mountains and bite joggers. Earth is full of dangerous beasts just waiting for a chance to kill, but with all the possible dangers to dwell on, I would probably never see the big one coming.

In the end I would be staring up at the pretty colors of the sunset, when the elephant stampede came out of nowhere. And that’s something I just have to accept.