Health and safety| 1858.3 Health and safety
Dead and dying birds can present hazards to those who are involved in the inves-
tigations. Sometimes the dangers are physical—for example, the risk of injury
while capturing live birds or retrieving dead ones from marshes—or chemical,
because of contact with formaldehyde—but the most important category
are the “zoonoses.” These are often defined—for example, by the World Health
Organization (WHO)—as “diseases and infections that are naturally transmissi-
ble between vertebrate animals and humans” but increasingly there is a tendency
to consider zoonoses as any disease or infection that can be acquired by humans
from animals (for a review of zoonotic infections, see Cooper 1990 and more
recent specific publications, relating to “new” hazards such as West Nile virus). A
useful general reference text on zoonoses, which includes data on both animals
and humans, is the book edited by Palmer et al. (1998).
With zoonoses the picture is constantly changing. Infectious agents that were
once not considered to be important in humans are now recognized as being
Table 8.3Types of postmortemexamination
Purpose Category Comment
To determine the cause of death Diagnostic Routine diagnostic
techniques are followed
To ascertain the cause of ill-health Diagnostic/ Usually routine—but
(not necessarily the cause of death) health monitoring detailed examinations and
laboratory tests may be
needed to detect nonlethal
changes
To provide background information Health monitoring As above.
on supposedly normal birds on the Must be methodical if
presence or absence of lesions, information is not to be
parasites, or of other factors, such as missed
fat reserves or carcass composition
To provide information for a legal case Forensic/legal Can be very different from
or similar investigation—for instance, the categories above. The
on the circumstances of death or the approach depends upon the
possibility that the bird suffered pain questions asked. There
or distress while it was alive must be a proper “chain of
custody” and all material
must be retained
For research purposes, such as Investigative Depends upon the
removal of tissue samples or requirements of the
examination of organs research worker