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A Pakistani villager carries an ailing peacock at Buphohar village in Thar desert in Sindh province last week. Dozens of wild peacocks have died suddenly in Pakistan, prompting experts to fear an outbreak of the highly contagious Newcastle disease.
A Pakistani villager carries an ailing peacock at Buphohar village in Thar desert in Sindh province last week. Dozens of wild peacocks have died suddenly in Pakistan, prompting experts to fear an outbreak of the highly contagious Newcastle disease.
That was the question Pakistanis were raising last week as reports persisted from the Thar desert area of southern Sindh province about peacocks whirling themselves to death in mad dances that appeared to have no earthly explanation.
By midweek, more than 120 peacock deaths had been reported - and the toll would keep rising - but the government would only acknowledge that 11 peacocks had died. Newspapers carried photos of children carrying corpses of the magnificently plumed fowl.
It turned out that the answer to the strange deaths was relatively simple: The peafowl were suffering from Newcastle disease, a contagious viral infection that causes dehydration, affects the brain and often causes the birds to spin.
The disease - known as Ranikhet in Pakistan - hit Thar and six other districts in Sindh. Thar alone is estimated to have 70,000 peacocks.
The peacock is wild in the province. Some poor villagers, including members of the Hindu community, keep the birds for their valuable feathers.
