Expert calls for bread ban at Lough

THE age-old tradition of feeding bread to birds at a city’s famed wildfowl sanctuary should be banned after a devastating outbreak of suspected botulism.

The call came from a leading animal welfare expert yesterday after several more dead ducks were recovered from the Lough in Cork city over the weekend.

Their deaths are believed to be linked to the worst outbreak of disease to ever hit the much-loved amenity and renowned carp fishery on the city’s southside.

People first began to notice something was wrong at the Lough late last month.

The birds had all been in good health, but “suddenly succumbed” to a disease which appeared to rapidly attack their central nervous system. On July 5, employees from Cork City Council and the Cork Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (CSPCA) moved in and recovered several dead ducks and swans.

Ted O’Connor, an animal inspector with the CSPCA, said the deaths at the weekend brings to almost 50 the total number of ducks to die in the suspected botulism outbreak. Up to 40 swans – almost a quarter of the city and county’s entire swan population – have been wiped out.

Mr O’Connor described it as the worst disease outbreak to ever hit the Lough.

He said two issues need to be addressed to ensure the Lough’s delicate eco-system remains balanced:

* Feeding bread to the birds must stop.

* The water must be aerated. The possibility of reinstating the fountains should be looked.

“People have been going to the Lough for years, and buying fresh bread for the birds. It is an age-old tradition. We all did it as children,” Mr O’Connor said.

“But bread is a killer. It is destroying the birds’ digestive tracts. And flour in any form is a deadly pollutant. It takes oxygen out of the water.” He said bacteria forming on stale bread left in the water may also have contributed to the outbreak.

It was compounded by a lengthy period of dry weather which hit the springs which normally replenish the water in the nine-acre limestone lake, turning the water stagnant.

Mr O’Connor has been backed by Labour TD Ciaran Lynch who was among the first people to raise concerns about the state of the sanctuary earlier this month. He said the city council, which manages the amenity, should examine the possibility of banning the practice of feeding bread to the birds. “This will probably ruffle a few feathers but we have to put the Lough first,” he said.

“The council could install bird feeders with proper bird feed around the Lough.”

In the absence of such a ban, Mr O’Connor said people should instead feed fresh lettuce or broccoli to the swans. And he said a pet shop nearby sells turkey pellets or chick starter – a type of feed for young chickens – which should be fed to the ducks.

Meanwhile, test results on samples taken from several of the dead animals and sent to Scotland for analysis are expected later this week.

Bird flu and a virus have already been ruled out.

There are believed to be about 2,000 carp in The Lough and the Irish record, of 29lb 13oz, was caught there in 1998 by Sidney Kennedy.