Flamingo deaths worry Bahamas

NASSAU, Bahamas -- Health specialists were dispatched yesterday to the southern Bahamas island of Inagua to try to determine whether an unexplained spate of bird deaths was linked to the bird flu virus that is spreading around the globe.

Over the past two days, 15 of the island's famed flamingos, five roseate spoonbills and one cormorant have been found dead with no external injuries on the island just north of Haiti, officials said.

Scientists from the Bahamas Ministry of Agriculture and the Department of Environmental Health will gather samples from the birds for laboratory analysis.

''Anything is possible in nature. You have birds that fly around the world," said Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources Leslie Miller, declining to rule out the presence of the H5N1 bird flu strain, which has killed at least 93 people and spread to 20 new countries in the past month.

''But let's hope to God that that is not the case here in the Bahamas," Miller said.

The H5N1 virus is endemic in birds across parts of Asia but has since spread to Europe and Africa. Specialists fear it could mutate into a form more easily passed among humans and trigger a pandemic in which millions of people could die.

Bahamas National Trust president Glenn Bannister said he had never known such a large number of bird deaths in the Bahamas at one time.

''This is a very large number of birds to be found dead at Inagua. This is highly unusual," he said.

Inagua is the second-largest breeding ground for flamingos outside of Africa.