TN-birders: I just received the following message which some of you may find of interest. Although the message doesn't specifically state that the bird tested positive for WNV, it certainly implies such - "classic symptoms...bird beat the disease, etc." Hopefully (?) the bird was banded before being released & Mr. Tamminga doesn't mind me sharing the good news. Enjoy..... W. Kelly Roy Knoxville TN Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 14:15:13 -0600 From: Wayne Tamminga <wtamminga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: West Nile I picked a Great Horned Owl up about 3 months ago on Higginson-Henry WMA. The local DoT found it along the road and the owl didn't fly away so they called us. Scott Buser and I captured the owl in a net, it didn't struggle much. We thought it was either hit by a vehicle or had West Nile disease. I brought the bird to the Hopkinsville Diagnostic Lab for testing. We got the bird out of the box and a technician there with heavy leather gloves got it to perch on her arm. The owl could barely keep it's head stable, was like it was going fall off, classic symptom of West Nile. I left the information about the bird with them and left, I thought they would just euthanize the owl and do a necropsy. Well this one technician was also a raptor rehabilitator, and she called me a few weeks ago. She said, she had to hand feed the bird for 2 weeks, then the bird finally started getting better and was able to start eating on its own. In six weeks she released the bird back into the wild at Pennyrile State Forest. So the bird beat the disease, not sure if it will have a life long immunity to the disease or not, thought would be an interesting story given some of the West Nile posts recently. Seems to effect certain species more then others i.e. horses, owls here in Kentucky. It is found in all 120 counties of the state and in my county alone Barren, 2 or 3 people died form it. Wayne Tamminga KY Dept. of Fish and Wildlife Resources Public Lands Biologist for the Green River Region Certified Wildlife Biologist 970 Bennett Lane, Bowling Green, KY 42104 (270)746-7130 & 7131 fax wtamminga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ----------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net Owner: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx (423) 764-3958 =========================================================