Field Journal: Blowouts and Bird Flu
Ed Jahn, Producer
Thursday, January 25, 2007 — We were in Summer Lake last September, under a baking sun for another not-so-uplifting story (Bird Flu) in a beautiful place. Summer Lake is a crazy, multiple-personality landscape &mdash lakes, arid alkaline playas, forest, mountains, canyons, wetlands, all within spitting distance of each other. It's also NOT the kind of place you want to blow out a tire. So, of course, we blew a tire. Not a pinhole leak but a tire-splitting, rubber-shredding all out explosion. And we were miles... miles.... miles from anywhere. There's nothing like riding a minivan on an 8 inch wide spare tire down rutted, pothole-infused forest service logging roads just praying that the spare doesn't blow as well. Note to potential funders—anyone want to donate a 4x4 vehicle to OPB for the field Guide crew? Just askin'.
In any case, Summer Lake is a great place for wildlife, and unfortunately a potential stopover for bird flu-infected waterfowl. Ever wondered how that nasty bird flu you keep hearing about might get to the Americas from Asia? From birds of course. And the same birds that summer in Asia are headed through Oregon right about now, bringing with them whatever diseases and germs they caught along the way. How will we know when bird flu arrives? That's our story — and we're headed out with biologists and vets to see if all the hype about a human pandemic and impending doom matches the reality of the situation.
