A TWO-MEMBER team of the UT Animal Husbandry and Fishery Department collected water samples along with the waste (droppings) of migratory birds from different banks of Sukhna Lake to send to the Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (RDDL), Jalandhar.
Dr Kanwarjit Singh, joint director-cum-veterinary officer with Animal Husbandry and Fishery Department, said, “It is a precautionary move. Usually, we collect water samples from Sukhna Lake every month but as migratory birds start arriving ahead of winter, we also collect the samples of their droppings. We have rigorously started taking samples every month since December 2014 when the dreaded avian flu was found in one of the samples out of several taken from the carcasses of dead domestic geese at the lake. Later, we had to conduct a culling operation. Since 2015, we have not received any positive report about any kind of virus in any samples collected from Sukhna Lake.”
Sources said, “A team also visited Dhanas Lake for collecting the water samples and waste of migratory birds taking shelter at the lake.”
Dhanas Lake is located at a distance of around 7 km from Sukhna Lake and birds also arrived there in a large number. This time, the presence of migratory birds was also reported very low there.
