Liberal Forum

jerrab » 22 minutes ago » wrote: ↑

22 minutes ago

sometimes birdwatching spots dont allow cats./////////////////////////////////////////////////

///////////Researchers at Argentina’s Malbrán Institute will go to Ushuaia “to conduct rodent capture and analysis operations in areas linked to the movements of the [index] cases and to detect the possible presence of the virus in natural reservoirs,” according to a Spanish-language statement issued by Argentina’s Ministry of Health on May 6. That same day the Associated Press reported that two Argentine officials who were investigating the origins of the outbreak and spoke on the condition of anonymity said the government’s leading hypothesis was that the couple contracted the virus while bird-watching in Ushuaia before the cruise. As part of their birding tour, the officials told the AP, the couple had visited a landfill, where they may have been exposed to rodents.When I heard about this theory, I was curious—and skeptical. I visited that landfill in Ushuaia on a bird-watching trip in February 2025 and didn’t immediately see why it would be conducive to hantavirus transmission based on what I knew about the disease.Surrounded by the snow-capped mountains and majestic beech forests of Tierra del Fuego, the port city of Ushuaia serves as the main gateway to Antarctica. It hosted more than 150,000 cruise passengers in 2025. Its motto is “Fin del mundo, principio de todo,” which translates to “End of the world, beginning of everything.”The landfill, called a relleno sanitario in Spanish, sits on the outskirts of the city and is well known to bird-watchers as an avian hotspot. Landfills are often good places to look for birds because they offer abundant food resources. Same goes for sewage plants. For birders visiting Ushuaia, a trip to the relleno sanitario is a must because it regularly attracts uncommon species such as the White-throated Caracara, Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle and Andean Condor.