I Saw A Bird Fly Away (Dar Williams)

It may be in poor taste to use a song from my favorite female performer for such a drab subject but this is something that needs to be written about and well, I love Dar Williams. Unfortunately, this post is about H5N1 Bird Flu. It has "officially" hit Sweden. I have noticed a change. Not a lot of fresh chicken for sale at the local ICA these days. They don't eat much turkey here, but there is a local turkey farm outside of Östersund which is probably a little worried. The H5N1 strain first arrived in the EU last month, and has now been confirmed in 11 EU countries: Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland. Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and Denmark.
The H5N1 strain, in its most aggressive form, has killed nearly 100 people worldwide, mainly in Asia. There is more concern about how the virus will evolve once it has spread to other animals. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Preservation (CDC) influenza viruses are constantly changing and evolving.
I keep thinking about the poor birds. Even the healthy ones on the farms must be killed once the virus is found. I imagine there will be some bird populations that will be wiped out, or become endangered or extinct. That is sad. It is also sad that I have to think about moving the bird suet we bought and have hanging off the porch to a tree far, far away so we or the dogs aren't subjected to potentially infected bird poo. I worry about using eggs. I also have to worry about one of the dogs finding a dead bird and my not getting to it first. The Centers for Disease Control and Preservation has some good info on their site about H5N1.
Does anyone other then me ever wonder if vegetarianism isn't such a bad idea? Between Mad Cow, Bird Flu and the fish tainted with mercury, it makes you wonder if any meat is going to be safe to eat. But then we would have to grow our own or buy organic so we wouldn't have to worry about the pesticides, fertilizers and genetically modified plants.
OK, back to happy thoughts. Go listen to great music. Click on the Dar link!