Livestock workers Monday culled more than 1,500 chickens, ducks and pigeons in Bangladesh's southwestern district of Jhenaidah, about 130 km southwest of Dhaka, as bird flu battered the country's poultry industry, Xinhua reported. An official at bird flu control room of the livestock ministry told Xinhua Monday that some 1,507 fowls were culled at Pativila village in Maheshpur sub-district of Jhenaidah district after report of 222 chicken died from the virus. With this new culling, some 428,953 fowls were destroyed in the country's 34 districts since March last year. The bird flu has threatened the country's growing poultry industry which has more than 100 billion taka (about 1.43 billion U.S. dollars) investment and employment of several million people mostly in rural areas. Already many private poultry farms were shut down. Panicked people stopped buying chickens, bringing down the prices of chickens in local markets. Meanwhile, the government has decided to raise the amount of compensation for the country's affected poultry farm owners. Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser Manik Lal Samaddar who is in charge of Fisheries and Livestock Ministry poultry asked farm owners not to remove poultry birds from the affected farms without informing the local administration, as the government will provide compensation to the affected poultry farm owners soon. He ordered district administrations and farm owners to spray germicides to poultry birds carrying vehicles at every entry points to make those free from germs.
