Bird Ecology and Conservation A Handbook of Techniques

182 |Information from dead and dying birds Table 8.1Some medical and pathological terms Medical term Meaning Clinical signs The ...

in the case of free-living (wild) birds this can be done without a licence or express permission from the relevant authorities d ...

Check that appropriate facilities and equipment are available, including protective clothing and other means of reducing the ri ...

Health and safety| 185 8.3 Health and safety Dead and dying birds can present hazards to those who are involved in the inves- ti ...

potentially pathogenic. Many of these “opportunists” take advantage of a debilitated host—in particular, a person who is immunos ...

Seek professional advice where the risk appears to be substantial—if for example, chlamydiosis (chlamydophilosis) is suspected ...

a whole range of tests and analyses, in addition to weighing and detailed measuring (see later). It can be time consuming. There ...

After examination save the bird’s carcase, frozen or fixed in formalin (see later). Record how and where the body and samples h ...

from an infected carcase), a few chemical (formalin is an irritant to eyes, mucous membranes, and skin and may be carcinogenic). ...

forceps are ideal for grasping tissues during dissection but can damage samples destined for the histology laboratory. A handlen ...

The objective of the person who is carrying out a postmortemexamination should be to observe and to record. There are inherent d ...

a bird should not be difficult but sometimes, especially if the bird is immature, if there is postmortemchange, or if it is a no ...

of relevant samples for morphometrics or study of gross or microscopical morphology. In some cases, the bird’s carcass and or ti ...

Laboratory investigations| 195 to be stored in the hopes that they can be analyzed at a later date (see ear- lier). Those who wo ...

Table 8.5 Laboratory tests on birds Samples Available from Comments Blood in appropriate anticoagulant Usually only from live bi ...

Samples should usually not exceed 20 mm  20 mm and there must be at least 10 times the volume of fixative as there is tissue. S ...

Table 8.5 (continued) Samples Available from Comments Droppings (mixture of feces and Both live birds (recently v oided Dropping ...

Interpretation of findings| 199 8.6 Interpretation of findings When investigating dying or dead birds, remember that a “diagnosi ...

the background, history, the circumstances under which the birds were found, the species (and sex/age ratio) and a multiplicity ...

Interpretation of findings is also often hampered by the lack of reliable refer- ence values. For example, although in recent ye ...