Concerns rise over diseased cockatoos in Port Douglas

BIRD DISEASE

Jamie Jansen

Journalist

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A close-up of a featherless cockatoo, a stark representation of the impact of PBFD. Picture: Newsport

Locals have expressed growing concerns over the condition of cockatoos residing along Old Port Douglas Road as a significant number of them exhibit severe feather loss. Newsport reached out to Mossman veterinarian, Susan Pasagic, to gather insights regarding the challenges faced by these birds.

Ms Pasagic confirmed that the cockatoos suffer from Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease (PBFD).

This highly contagious disease primarily affects parrots, cockatoos, and lorikeets, collectively known as psittacine birds and does not pose any risk to humans.

“The incubation period changes from species to species, which is why we see it come and go,” Ms Pasagic explained.

“A bird can begin to show signs as late as 20 years of age, even though he has been clinically normal for most of its life.

“The affected birds gradually lose plumage, often without other clinical signs of illness.”

What is at risk?

Ms Pasagic continued explaining that all bird species are at risk due to the circovirus infection, affecting psittacine birds in particular.

"The species most commonly affected include cockatoos, macaws, African grey parrots, ringneck parakeets, lories and lorikeets, eclectus parrots, pionus parrots, and lovebirds,” she said.

"If pet birds come into contact with wild birds, they can also become infected."

A significant number of cockatoos residing along Old Port Douglas Road exhibit a distressing condition of feather loss. Picture: Newsport

No treatment

PBFD is a fatal disease without any known treatment or cure.

“Supportive care and treatment of concurrent illnesses may allow some birds to have a somewhat normal quality of life for an extended time before succumbing,” Ms Pasagic said.

“This requires management. The most important thing is to protect birds in the first 3-6 weeks of their life from coming into contact with this.

“The younger the bird is when it becomes infected, the more severe is the immunosuppression and disease. Some birds die shortly after showing signs of PBFD while others live months to years.”

Controlling the disease

“Controlling PBFD involves testing susceptible birds through DNA testing at a laboratory and isolating or culling those that test positive.

“We test them twice, 90 days apart, even if they have no lesions of PBFD. The negative ones are separated.

“The positive ones can be housed somewhere if they don’t have any symptoms, and many can go on to live long happy lives if they are stress free. But keep in mind that they can still shed the disease, so can spread it.

“Often the best way is unfortunately to remove infected birds asap from a population so it prevents the young birds catching it. Then you have a healthy population that you can monitor.

“It would require government support and funding to put a program into place so that vets can assess and collect blood and feather samples for the laboratory for testing.”

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